Chapter 18
Ingleside, Prince Edward Island
"No," Gilbert said in his doctor voice.
Jem opened his mouth to protest, thought better of it, closed his mouth, and looked down at his dinner plate.
Bertie Shakespeare Drew and his cousins from Mowbray Narrows were going to watch the travelling lantern slide show at the lecture hall in the Glen. Bertie said that his aunt had gone to see the show when it was in Charlottetown. The aunt told Bertie that the missionaries who put on the show told jolly stories about the people in the show.
But, alas, Jem would not be going. Father said no, and father's word was final.
Gilbert said, "Jem, those shows exploit poor people. The performer will show his audience a series of painted glass slides showing people who haven't had the advantages that you have had in life. People who don't have loving parents or a nice warm house or food to eat. The performer will tell you a bunch of stories about these people. And maybe some of the stories are true. Maybe. But I can guarantee you that a lot of these stories are just that – stories that the performer wrote himself. Then, the people putting on the show will ask you for more of your money."
Gilbert continued, "I hope that you see that there's something wrong with the type of people who take amusement at the misery of others. The type of people who gawk at folks down on their luck. The type of people who make up stories about poverty and illness for their own amusement. It's not right, Jem. Always remember that."
Anne said, "Always listen to your father, Jem."
Flashback – Redmond University, Kingsport, Nova Scotia, Junior Year
As time went on, the details of Anne's time spent with Roy Gardner got more and more confusing to her.
Well, there was that hokey story that she told Phillipa Gordon and anyone else who would listen about how she was out in the rain with a failing umbrella. About how Roy appeared out of thin air with his umbrella. People usually got bored after that and had no more questions about Roy's courtship. Which was good.
Nobody had ever asked one of the questions that Anne dreaded, "How did Roy take it when you told him that you grew up in an orphanage?"
For one thing, Anne never volunteered that detail to anyone at Redmond. Of course, Gilbert and Charlie Sloane knew because they were from Avonlea. Priscilla and Stella had gone to Queens with Anne and several of the others from Avonlea, so maybe they knew. Maybe they all talked about it behind her back. But Anne never brought it up, so nobody ever brought it up to her.
So, if anybody had asked Anne "How did Roy take it when you told him that you grew up in an orphanage?," Anne's answer would have to be:
"I never told Roy that I grew up in an orphanage."
Anne told Roy that her parents died of a fever when she was a baby and that an unmarried brother and sister raised her.
Roy didn't ask for more details.
Roy himself hid things from Anne. That whole story about the rainstorm and the umbrella? The story in which Anne met Roy "by accident" and it was "meant to be?" Well, several years after leaving Redmond, Anne met up with some old Redmond girlfriends. One of these girlfriends had married a Redmond man who had been drinking friends with Roy, and this drinking friend had let slip something that Roy had let slip to him. It turned out that Roy had really left Redmond after his sophomore year because he was on academic probation. After he left Redmond, he told people that he "left Redmond to escort his widowed mother around Europe" as a convenient excuse. Two years later, after Redmond readmitted Roy, he needed people to pick up a substantial part of his schoolwork. He inquired among the other Redmond men. He discovered that Anne Shirley was a star student in the English department, that she was a junior just like him, and more importantly – she had no beau or fiancé. So, Roy engineered the "accidental" meeting with Anne in the rainstorm. Roy had just been really, really fortunate that her umbrella failed as he followed her.
When Anne heard this about Roy, she lost whatever guilt she still held for whatever "harm" she might have caused to Roy for never telling Roy about her time spent in the orphanage. She lost whatever guilt she still held for "tricking" Roy into "tainting" himself by spending so much time with a past social outcast such as her.
Anne never did let go of the guilt that she held for anyone that she and Roy might have hurt together.
You see, Anne planned to never go into any detail with her own children about Roy's courtship. There were obvious reasons for this. Anne had rejected their father's marriage proposal, wasted one or two years with Roy, and then decided that she loved their father only when their father was seriously ill. Not a great story to tell your own children.
But Anne had even more reasons to never tell her kids about her time spent with Roy. You see, Roy sent her flowers and he took her lectures and concerts. He escorted her to Redmond receptions. He visited her on Friday nights at Patty's Place.
Roy also courted Anne through activities which Anne hoped her husband and children never, ever, ever discovered:
On certain fair-weathered Saturdays, he showed up at Patty's Place holding a picnic hamper packed by a member of his family's household staff. He took Anne to the parts of Kingsport that "nice Redmond girls didn't visit." Roy and Anne walked through the streets and laughed at inebriated men laying in gutters outside of taverns. They "discreetly" pointed out elderly women hanging threadbare garments on laundry lines outside of rowhouses. Roy's neighbor owned a workhouse that they visited before one of their picnics.
One Saturday, Roy appeared at Patty's Place and instructed Anne to prepare for a short train trip.
"It's a surprise," Roy said.
Anne boarded the train with Roy.
"Aren't you going to tell me now?," she asked after a short while. "How will I know when we should disembark?"
"Not yet," Roy said. "I will tell you when it's our stop."
Then the conductor called, "Hopetown."
"This," said Roy. "This is our stop."
Roy help Anne off of the train at Hopetown. Roy hired a wagon to take Roy and Anne and their picnic basket to . . . Hopetown Asylum.
Hopetown Asylum. Hopetown Asylum. Hopetown Asylum.
Roy Gardner and Anne Shirley toured Hopetown Asylum as a lark.
Afterward, they sat on the grass under a tree in Hopetown's only park and partook of a picnic. Well, Roy partook of the picnic. Anne pretended to eat.
Anne didn't actually remember anything about their actual tour around the orphanage. She packed it away in the part of her brain where she packed away everything that made her hurt.
Much later, when she told Phil Gordon that she had turned down Roy's marriage proposal, she mentioned Roy's lack of sense of humor.
She said nothing to Phil about Roy's cruel streak.
Because if Anne had ever admitted to anyone that Roy had a cruel streak and that Anne knew about it and had gone along with it for over a year, then Anne would have to admit something else.
That Anne, too, had a cruel streak. She, Anne, was an ugly person. A person who could tour a workhouse, or the VERY SAME ORPHANAGE where she grew up, and then sit in front of a picnic lunch.
To make it worse, Anne couldn't be true enough to herself to tell Roy about her time spent at Hopetown Asylum. Anne was a coward.
Anne was a cruel coward.
Flashback Over. Ingleside, Prince Edward Island
Anne put her younger children to bed as Susan washed cleared the dinner dishes and Gilbert balanced the books for his medical practice. Everybody at Ingleside had his or her own job.
Jem said, "Mother, what does "exploit mean?"
Anne said, "Why do you ask, my dear?"
Jem said, "Dad said tonight that the lantern slide shows exploit poor people. What does exploit mean?"
Anne said, "Oh, my dear, it means to take advantage of somebody else."
Jem said, "So, if you exploit somebody, it must mean that you're not a very good person."
Anne said, "You're absolutely right, darling. If you exploit somebody, then you're not a very good person."
