Anne always says jokingly that when Marilla sits on the porch swing is the only time she ever looks less than serious—one elbow resting casually on the bench arm, her hand against her cheek, and a far-off expression in her eyes—and that her entire attitude may appear wistful at first but soon belies a nervous energy, as though Marilla were waiting for something. Or someone.
Today Marilla's unconscious expectance is rewarded. The sound of buggy wheels breaks into a very un-Marilla reverie, and she looks up to see John Blythe gazing upon her from his high perch. "Good day, Marilla."
"John Blythe," Marilla greets him blankly. She hasn't been this flustered since she was nineteen—or rather, since had had that last argument with John. "We haven't seen you around these parts much lately." Not for almost thirty years.
"Well, I haven't much time for social calls, nowadays," John prevaricates. His face, as well as his tone, is unreadable, but even from the porch Marilla can see the twinkle in his pale blue eyes.
There is a very pregnant pause.
"Old place still looks as pretty, though," remarks John at last, looking affectionately at the green roof and lace-point trim.
Marilla smiles a little at the abrupt transition. "The old buildings are getting worn down," she admits, thinking of two years ago when she almost had to sell Green Gables. "But people in Avonlea still say that it's the loveliest old spot on the North shore."
"It is that," agrees John, looking steadily and thoughtfully, not at Green Gables, but at the woman on the porch.
Marilla is not sure they are still talking about Green Gables. She fidgets, and possibly even blushes a little, but not uncomfortably.
"Some things never change," says John softly, "even in thirty years."
Another awkward silence ensues.
John is suddenly brisk and courteous. "I'm looking for my boy."
"Yes," Marilla supplies vaguely, as she tries to recollect her dazed, usually-calm wits. "Anne and he are walking by the Pond…Maybe…Would you like to…sit awhile, until they come back?"
Please.
John hesitates, but says only, gruffly, "Thanks, but we're taking the shipment into Charlottetown before dark. I'd best go and find him."
But as John tugs at the reins to bring the horse around, Anne bursts out of the bushes, her flower basket empty, her hair flying and her cheeks flushed with anger.
"Anne!" Gilbert Blythe is close behind, on horseback. "What about your twenty dollars? For the cow—?" his query ends abruptly as Anne rushes up the porch besides astonished Marilla, yanks the screen door open, flings the kitchen door behind it inward, and slams both.
Embarrassed, Marilla turns back to the men. Gilbert has ridden up beside his father, who shoots him an inquiring look, which is shrugged off. In their sweater vests (though John also has a sweater on), striped blouses, and gray caps, they bear a striking resemblance to one another…
Marilla feels ill enough, but the pain increases when John turns back to her. "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, does it?" he grins, nodding at the still-reverberating screen door. "…good day, Marilla," he repeats, and then they are gone.
Resignedly, Marilla rises and climbs the stairs to Anne's room. In the six or seven years since Anne came to Green Gables, Marilla has "got mellow", to quote Rachel Lynde, but she is still practical and sarcastic, most of the time.
In the split second before Marilla turns the door handle of the east gable, she can hear Anne weeping, and is reminded fleetingly of another incident: of standing with her body's weight against a bolted door, listening to a younger Anne bemoan "the depths of despair"—and, then, of a much earlier memory, that of a chestnut-haired nineteen-year-old, sobbing her heart out, in another room of the house, as she realized the man she loved would never return to Green Gables on her behalf.
It is because of this last recollection that Marilla wrenches the door open with more force than she intends, and sees Anne curled up on the bed, sobbing into a pillow.
Marilla instantly sits down next to her girl. "Oh, there, there," she comforts Anne, stroking her hair, though she doesn't yet know what she is trying to make Anne feel better about.
However, Marilla has rather a good idea of what must have happened. "You take things too much to heart, Anne Shirley..."
"Oh, Marilla!" sniffs Anne, "it's such a Jonah day! With Rollings Reliable…and Dolly…and Gilbert--!"
"Now, now…" The pieces are beginning to come together in Marilla's head. Once again, Gilbert Blythe is the root of Anne's troubles. "Jonah days come to everybody.
"God knows best," Marilla adds. She knows she is merely mouthing a platitude which gave Marilla herself no comfort on the only Jonah day of her life, and tries a different tack. "You used to say: Tomorrow is always fresh—with no mistakes in it. Do you remember?"
Anne sits up a little; manages a small nod.
"Oh, what a girl you used to be for getting in trouble in them days!" Marilla continues with forced cheerfulness, pulling Anne up by the arm. "Mind the time you dyed your hair?" Forced, her tone might have been, but a real peal of laughter escapes Marilla as the image of a tearful girl, her red hair splotched and marred by streaks of green and black. And now Marilla really is smiling. "I used to think you were possessed! Oh, Lord…"
The idea elicits a wide, if teary, grin from Anne. "What a worry my red hair used to be! I'm afraid I've never been able to endure personal criticism very well," she moans soon. "Gilbert gave his honest opinion of my story this afternoon…and I…
"Urgh! My temper always gets the better of me!" Anne complains. "I whipped him as hard as I could."
"I'm glad to hear it," says Marilla firmly. "The Blythes have always been far too opinionated for their own good!"
"Oh, no, Marilla." Anne shakes her head gently. "He was right. And I've made a terrible idiot of myself! You don't know how spiteful I was!"
"I can imagine."
Anne, either not hearing or not comprehending, goes on, "Our friendship—now it won't ever be the same again! Why can't he just be sensible, instead of acting like a silly schoolboy?"
It is an interesting question, with an even more interesting (not to mention, evident—at least to Marilla) answer, and one Marilla herself did not know the answer to until it was too late. Marilla presses her eyes closed a breath before she says, slowly, "Because he loves you."
"He…loves me?" Anne repeats, scarcely above a whisper. "I can't imagine why."
Marilla smiles at her girl. "Because you made Josie Pye and Ruby Gillis—and all of those wishy-washy young ladies who waltzed by him—look like spineless nothings."
"But…Gil…" Anne sighs. "He's hardly my idea of a romantic suitor."
Marilla has been hearing constantly about Anne's "Romantic Ideal" for several years now. Having never learned to think in capital letters, Marilla sighs. "Young lady, you have tricked something out with that imagination of yours that you call romance—and now you aren't able to recognize the real thing. Have you forgotten how he gave up Avonlea School for you, these past few years, so you could stay here with me? How he picked you up every day in his buggy, so you could study your courses together?" Marilla chucks bemused Anne under the chin. "Don't toss it away, Anne, for some ridiculous ideal that doesn't exist."
Anne nods weakly, and Marilla nods briskly.
"Good. Now, before you finish packing for college, come downstairs and see if a cup of tea and some of those plum puffs that I made today don't hearten you."
"Plum puffs," begins Anne tragically, "won't minister to a mind diseased—or a world—that has crumbled—into pieces—!" and she breaks down in a fit of tears again.
Marilla, seeing that Anne is recovered enough to adopt a quotation, is unmoved this time, and can only say, "Well, I'm glad to see that your dented spirits haven't injured your tongue."
Little do either of them know how a few years at Redmond will change all that.