Author's Note
I hope this update comes as a nice surprise and not as an overdue afterthought. I never intended to take what has eventually been almost a year's inadvertent hiatus; every month was going to see me close the chapter out and post it for you. Alas, the best laid plans have a habit of going awry, as that pesky thing called Real Life intervenes, and as another story has muscled in on my ever-decreasing time!
I hope you will be able to pick up where we left off without too much trouble and head-scratching, and that you enjoy where we are headed. I have a few 'bends in the road', plot-wise, to navigate, but I am determined to stay the course. This story was the one to bring me to fanfiction and to this community, and my desire to complete it remains as strong as ever.
With thanks to both elizasky and mavors4986, both of whom probably won't remember their beta reads of the letters section (sorry DrinkThemIn!) of this eons ago, and gave helpful and insightful advice as always. Thank you to my readers, with your bolstering and encouraging reviews and lovely pm's, and the always delightful addition of new readers through follows and faves. Finally to a few lovely people who have commented both in recent weeks and long months ago, when they could be forgiven for thinking I had abandoned this enterprise entirely - thank you to many guests, to wow, Aoggfan, sanatheab, Snowmuchtolove, lehtosenheini, Natalia2, SeleneHarker, and both bibliophilia1 and NotMrsRachelLynde for several lovely and appreciated comments across several stories.
With love,
MrsVonTrapp x
Chapter Twenty Seven
The Year is a Book
Part One
Sunday 27th April 1884
Dearest Anne
I had no hope of getting off a reply to your letter before we were to find ourselves all back trooping these hallowed halls of Redmond, so I will slip this under your door for your return. You know I have a little practice at that from times past!
All at Mount Holly were well and remember you fondly, and extend the invitation for a future visit when you are not charming all of Avonlea and making off (at long last!) with its most eligible young bachelor. You and Gilbert?! Well, thank goodness! All is finally right in the world! And Diana and Fred engaged? Well, you all HAVE been busy in my absence! I will require a full report from all parties on the where, when and how of these two delightful events.
As for me, dare I say I am beginning to wax and certainly wane regarding the social whirl, and think I may follow your lead in giving one man the gift of my undivided attention for a while. But honey, who should it be? Your lovely young Tom is free now, obviously, but I'd rather not wade into that rather murky pond. A man on the rebound is never a good idea. In the absence yet of any suitable candidates I will simply have to take first in the final term's standings in Greek and Mathematics instead – and you may inform Gilbert of my intention in doing so, since he will be so very distracted by thoughts of your good self from here on as to make this endeavour, in the latter case at least, all the easier.
See you tomorrow, honey! Sleep well.
Love
Phil x
Sunday 27th April 1884
Kingsport, Nova Scotia
Dear Ma and Dad
Just a quick note to let you know we have safely arrived in Kingsport, and I am once again ensconced in my room at the boarding house, and already I am missing you both and home. The journey was as it ever is, but there is comfort in the long summer ahead of us at the end of this term and hopefully the prospect of some encouraging results before the year comes to a close.
Thank you so very much for your continual support of me and especially of Anne and of our new courtship. I care for her deeply and cannot properly express how happy I am at this moment and how grateful for all your love and guidance. I will strive to make you both proud and to be deserving of my place here and of calling myself
your loving son
Gilbert
Monday 28th April 1884
Redmond College
Kingsport, Nova Scotia
Dear Mr and Mrs Barry and Minnie May
I write to thank you all most sincerely for my lovely stay with you in Avonlea, and for your kindness and most generous hospitality. Orchard Slope is a beautiful home and so delightfully situated. My time with you all has provided me with many indelible memories.
Diana has become a close and most beloved friend, and it was wonderful to meet and get to know her charming family, and to be on hand to help celebrate the very happy news of her engagement.
With fond regards
Anne Shirley
Monday 28th April 1884
Dear Mr and Mrs Blythe
I cannot adequately express my joy in having met you both, nor my gratitude for your generous hospitality whilst I was in Avonlea.
Gilbert has talked fondly and often of you and of his hometown, and I feel privileged to now have my own firsthand knowledge of the people and the places that he treasures, and already feel my own strong affection for yourselves and Avonlea.
I was overwhelmed by your friendliness and your multitude kindnesses, most particularly in the very new courtship Gilbert and I have undertaken. Having no family of my own I would have understood if you had expressed a certain reluctance, regarding Gilbert forming an attachment with me, but instead was delighted to find only unwavering support. This has meant the world to me.
Thank you again for your most thoughtful gifts – the embellishments for my dresses are just beautiful, and the veritable picnic you sent along with Gilbert for our journey back to Redmond was thoroughly enjoyed.
With fondest wishes and thanks
Anne Shirley
Monday 28th April 1884
Redmond College, Women's Boarding House
Kingsport, Nova Scotia
Dear Tom, Miss Marilla Cuthbert, Mr Matthew Cuthbert, Mrs Lynde, Davy and Dora,
I write to thank you all once again for your lovely hospitality during my two visits to Green Gables. They provided some of the highlights of my entire stay in Avonlea! I confess I can never look at a bottle of milk in quite the same way again, knowing so much more intimately from whence its' contents originated!
I will treasure the kindness of you all and your embracing of me as Tom's friend. I loved learning about the land he has grown to love and his plans for its future. Most especially I loved meeting the folk who are his family in every way, and to see the easy love and affection you have for one another. It was a wrench to leave you all, but I am heartened to be able to visualise you now, in your beautiful surrounds, with the sun glinting off the whitewashed weatherboard of your fine homestead, someone always at the ready by your green door in welcome.
As I write I hope that Davy and Dora know that the sprig of blossom that was my souvenir from our journey to Bright River has pride of place on my desk, and seems to have sprouted several new buds already. It is a wonderful reminder of Avonlea, as are your too-generous gifts – I am sure to be a sought after companion at breakfast armed with more incomparable Green Gables preserves.
All I can do now is send my very best wishes to you all, and remember my time with you with a smile.
With fondest regards
Anne Shirley
Tuesday 29th April 1884
Redmond College, Women's Boarding House
Kingsport, Nova Scotia
Dearest Tom
I sincerely hope that this additional letter finds your eyes only. Not that I would wish you to have to hold things back from any at Green Gables; only that my feelings for you are so tied to so many different threads that to begin to unravel them for anyone else is like unravelling my entire existence.
Forgive me, for I didn't mean to start in such an overwrought way. You have been nothing but kindness and calm, and all I seem to bring is calamity.
I very much had the feeling that Mrs Lynde and particularly Miss Cuthbert were most disappointed in me, in learning of my courtship with Gilbert. I know you are disappointed in this too, though you tried to overcome it. I cannot say what Matthew might have thought; he is not one for words, as I have learned. Luckily Davy and Dora acted as a wonderful diversion to what became a very awkward moment during my last visit.
Tom, I would not wish you further pain. If my correspondence will be painful for you, I will gladly cease, till such time as you are ready for it to resume, if ever. Those words stab at my heart to write, but I would rather absorb the wounds myself than wield the knife against you. Likewise, I would not wish Miss Cuthbert to be held to a promise of correspondence which she made at a time before she knew of myself and Gilbert.
I saw you in your element, Tom, within the bosom of a loving family; tanned, healthy and strong, as I always saw you in my mind's eye for all our lost years. You can't know what a joy and a comfort your happy circumstances are to me. I do not want to be a blight upon them. If this is to be my last letter to you for a long while, let it be known that you have my undying, unwavering friendship, and I will think of you every day and thank God that I was able to share in your life again, even for a time.
With love, always
Anne x
Wednesday 30th April 1884
Redmond, Kingsport, Nova Scotia
Dear Tom
I am very sorry that I was not able to share the following sentiments in person when I was back in Avonlea, and hope that this letter finds you and all at Green Gables well. It is rather an awkward one to write, but necessary, for you have been nothing but the best of friends to Anne (and by extension, to myself) and I only hope to be able to live up to your example.
It would not have been a secret to you that my feelings for Anne had, for a long time, been not merely those of friendship. They developed in this manner well before I knew of your past connection to Anne, and although it has made the situation between us all more complicated, I can't in all honesty say I could have halted them, even if I had known earlier than your own feelings ran in the same direction.
I do apologise for the pain the news of our courtship has caused you. I did not wish for my happiness to come at your expense, and I regret it may have done so. I wish I could say, if our circumstances had been reversed, that I would have acted with the same generosity of spirit that you have shown. I know you have acted thus due to your feelings for and bond with Anne, but nonetheless I am grateful.
Please know that I will do my utmost to support Anne and make her happy. I will certainly uphold my vow to 'do right by her'. As you have always done. I must reveal to you that Anne confided in me some of the circumstances of your time together at the orphanage, and they shocked and appalled me to the core. I thank you as the boy you were and your bravery in helping to prevent something that I can hardly bear to fathom. You safeguarded Anne then and for always. As someone who cares for her as deeply as you, I can only express my indebtedness to you and my ongoing admiration.
You are a very decent fellow, Tom. At the very least I recognised that back in school. We were friends then and I hope we can be again, for Anne's sake as much as for ours. She needs you in her life in a way that runs even deeper than a courtship. You are as necessary to her happiness as I hope one day to be. I hope that you will always know that.
With best wishes
Gilbert
Friday 2nd May 1884
Green Gables
Avonlea, PEI
Dear Miss Anne
I pray this note finds yer well. Forgive me, as I am not much fer writing. Farming has always bin what I have known and probly the only thing I'm good fer. I was never much fer school, though Marilla was bright and keen and capable. But between us, her a girl and me needed on the farm, there was not much schooling in our family. It's always bin a regret, and it was a hard time for us when we saw things for Tom go the same way, though he has a real fire to learn and keep improving himself, and I see there yer influence on him. And the way he has worked the farm… well, we couldn't be prouder or more grateful. Anyways, do forgive these ramblin words. There's hardly any folks to write ter these days, if there ever was, and I clear lack the practice.
I bin thinking of yer visit for a good time now… not only the fun of yer first visit, but also yer last. I beg forgiv'ness for the reactions of some here at Green Gables. It wasn't fer them to comment, but they did, even if'n not so many words. Yer see, we are in desperation for Tom's happiness, and set too much store in yer being responsible fer it. That was mighty unfair. You have brought him so much happiness jist being back in his life. And yer entitled to yer own happiness too. Young Gilbert is a fine, bright lad who was a good friend to Tom back in the day.
I must tell yer, Miss Anne, that we know, Marilla and me, of the mix up at Hopetown, all them years ago, and the pain and disappointment it must've caused yer. If it had bin in our power to have done something at the time we would've. Tom was near demented at first to have left yer behind. It took him years, really, to make his peace with it. And with yer finally come to Avonlea we thought we'd be able to make it up to yer. I don't think we did the best job at that, so I am offerin here now. Please think on us as yer family, too. If ever yer in need of something please let us know. We would welcome any of yer college news or anything else you've a mind to share with us.
Wishin yer the very best
Matthew Cuthbert
Sunday 4th May 1884
Green Gables, Avonlea
Dearest Anne,
Don't stab at my heart with that knife of yours. Because that is what you would do if you quit writing me. So don't talk about those desperate measures. That is my stern warning to you. You are my friend for life, no matter what.
I feel you here in every part of this place, even though you were with us such a short time. Even the air I breathe seems to have your lily scent about it now. The twins can't stop talking about you, and are already planning your return. Davy is insisting we teach you how to manage a horse next time, considering your quick learning with our cow. And Matthew has the fondest smile on his face whenever you're mentioned.
Please don't worry about Marilla and Mrs Lynde. They were very excited to meet you at last and thought you wonderful. However, they are protective of me, I have to own to that, and that showed itself in their responses to the news of you and Gilbert. You might not know that he wrote to me, explaining his feelings for you. I never doubted they are strong, but it is some comfort to believe now that they are sincere.
Tell me all the news of college, even the things you think I might not want to hear. I had silence for seven years, Anne. It will bring me far more pleasure than pain to know of your comings and goings. In the meantime I will try to find anything interesting to write about from this end, though I offer no guarantees.
I've read and reread your collection of stories, and think you are a real writer, Anne, one of skill and talent and feeling. You have a real gift for words. Miss Stacey, our teacher in Avonlea for a time, would have gone wild over you. You must do something with your talent, Anne. Even when the subject was difficult, you managed to make me laugh in places, even if I didn't want to. And some of the letters you included… well, I have no words for them myself. I didn't dare believe you would think on me so much over all our lost years. But the thing is, they are not lost to me now. I have been able to follow you away from Hopetown to the other, better, places you have been. And I have seen and can picture you in Kingsport. And now here. And you can do the same. Back last New Year's Eve I was facing another year of not knowing whatever happened to you, and then Diana gave me your letter, and everything changed. Or maybe, in some ways, changed back.
And now I feel at a bit of a strange time in life. I can't explain it. I'm not explaining it well even to myself. I don't think I have the words for this, either. But I spent so long working up the farm and searching for you and now that the farm is going well, and Matthew for the time being is well, and I have found you (or that, we found each other) I don't know what path I should take now. What do I do with myself, Anne? You could always direct me. I need a little of that again I think. Just, no acting out scary stories in bedsheets, mind.
Stay well and happy, Anne. If you always wished this for me, that is all I ever wanted for you also.
Love, always
Tom
Monday 5th May 1884
Summerside, PEI
Dear Anne
Well, I cannot say the news of your letter came as any surprise to me, either regarding the Thorburn Scholarship or your courting with Mr Gilbert Blythe. If you had written of one and not the other I would have been strangely disappointed, and it is a reluctant testimonial to that young man's character that I don't exclusively prefer the scholarship news to that of him. Or, rather, your happiness with him.
Happiness, Anne, seems to have been an elusive prize for far too long, and now that you have yours and my own is within my grasp, I hardly know what to make of it. Hate – or at least a despairing kind of negativity – has got to be some kind of disease with me. * I wonder that when Dr McCubbin bled me, he did not find my blood black or green instead of its true color. Too long have I been preoccupied with the bitterest gall ** my circumstances had instilled in me. Now I think that Life owes me something more than it has paid me and I'm going out to collect it. ***
My health improves steadily, so you can cease making half a page of enquiries with every letter, thank you. It will never be as it was, but I can now brandish a handsome cane to punctuate my speech, which may come in useful when my rudimentary Italian begins to fail me. Yes, I still intend to travel to the Continent, now more than ever. I have written to several expatriate friends of the Home Director Mrs Llewelyan, and at least one of them will provide me with board and make my introductions to some local well-to-do native families. I intend to base myself in Rome and tutor for a short time until I am in the position to travel, and whether I find a travelling companion or take to the streets with my own scandalous entourage of one remains to be seen. Either way, I shall not regret leaving a single soul behind excepting Dr McCubbin and yourself.
I will visit in Kingsport with you before I depart, so will see you just before your final exams, and let's have no nonsense of you wasting study time coming back here before then. I am perfectly content if the President of Freshman Year would like to accompany you when we meet. Until then,
Your friend
Katherine
Thursday 15th May 1884
Redmond College, Women's Boarding House
Kingsport, Nova Scotia
Dear Tom
I could scarcely believe the sight that greeted me yesterday afternoon, not three weeks into our new term, when our boarding house mistress handed me the usual missive from my parents and a new, lone letter besides.
How kind of you to write, Tom! Truly! I had rather regretted my plea to you, thinking how unfair of me it had been to press you into a correspondence that you had neither sought nor suggested. I would not have blamed you for wanting to withdraw from your promise entirely, and still would not blame you for doing so even now. And I must absolutely assure you, Tom, that I did not make the suggestion in the first place to hold my knowledge of Hopetown over you, or Anne, and hope you understand that, for it would mortify me if that was still unclear.
For someone who professes not to have much to write about, you astound me with how busy and full your days are, and how big and flourishing Green Gables seems to be! I confess that I am embarrassed to have talked of our modest family farm and your own in the same sentence! We really have a minimal acreage, just enough to support ourselves, and a small (I now realise, having seen Diana's, VERY small) apple orchard, with none of your cherries to speak of. We have a miniscule barley crop every year, and keep only enough livestock to help us tend it. In all honesty, most of our income comes from my father's local bookkeeping business – I have only belatedly realised he himself attended Fred and Ruby's Commercial College – and he has looked after the accounts of most of our friends and neighbours here in Spencervale for twenty years, though he of course has a few clients elsewhere, including a Mrs Spencer of our mutual acquaintance in White Sands.
What we DO have is my mother's pride and joy – her extensive and well-loved vegetable garden. I am sure it is a demonstration of her practical nature that she does not spend the time, when she is well, amongst the trees or flowers, but in the dirt, exclaiming over whichever garden pest has earned her ire THIS week. Her produce is well regarded locally, and has even placed in competition at the Carmody Fair (though thankfully not during the time I was teaching there, as I was often called in to help judge several categories and that would have accounted for an unenviable conflict of interest!)
Tom, that just now brings to mind an idea – why don't you yourself enter some of your wooden creations, as either competition entries in the craft section or even as goods for sale? I'm sure they would be tremendously popular. You would give any of the established woodturners on our side of the Island a real run for their money. Honestly, Tom, your workmanship is extraordinary, particularly considering your simple tools. I would be so pleased for you to receive wider recognition for it.
Well, Tom, I must leave off there. Unfortunately this Art History composition staring so accusingly at me won't write itself. I offer much thanks for your kindness, and the hand of friendship if you so desire to take it.
Warm wishes
Pris Grant
Anne took her usual place in Art History, settling next to Pris with a smile that tried its best to be steady. The attractive, merry girl, such a fun comrade these many months, was now an unexpected confidante of her own history and this was new, tricky terrain to try to negotiate.
"Hello, Anne!"
"Hello, Pris."
In truth, Anne had gone to speak to the tall, stylish blonde girl many times since the start of term, and just as many times had faltered. There was always Phil with them, or Gilbert, and never quite the opening to broach the topic. But here they were, missing Miss Gordon today due to a head cold, and with the yawning gulf of secrets and their new class topic of the Pre-Raphaelites between them.
"You could have been a model for Rossetti with your coloring, Anne," Priscilla ventured, smiling gently, indicating the specially printed document of key images that was supplementing their older textbooks.
"It is encouraging to have anyone willingly paint red hair!" Anne acknowledged wryly.
"Auburn, surely?" Pris flashed a more confident smile, and a loving tease in remembrance of a long-ago lament of Anne's on that very subject. Grey eyes smiled into blue, as if both girls had momentarily forgotten their awkwardness.
"Will we have lunch together today, Anne?" Priscilla took advantage of her opening. "Unless Gilbert has a prior claim?"
"No… he has a Student Council meeting," Anne answered carefully. "And lunch together sounds lovely."
They strolled with their books later in the pleasant afternoon sun, the playful spring breeze stirring the canopies above them, and stopped to sit beneath a little bower to share sandwiches and perhaps even confidences.
"Anne – " Pris began after a time. "I'm wondering if… back in Avonlea…"
"Tom told me!" the reply came out in a relieved rush. "He told me what you had told him, more or less, out at Orchard Slope that day."
Once it was said Anne wondered if she wanted to stuff the words back into her mouth, for Pris's fair cheeks heated furiously.
"Oh, Anne, I'm sorry! I should have talked to you first, once I suspected. I've made such a muddle of things!"
Anne shook her head determinedly. "No, Pris darling, don't put that upon yourself. Everything was a dreadful mess long before you learned about it."
"I can't tell you how bad I feel…" Priscilla's face crumpled. "It seems such an extraordinary story, but it's your lives we are talking about. I can't… I can't get my head around it, really. It's been bothering me for ages. Please tell me who knows and who doesn't – I don't want to put my big foot in it in the future if I can possibly help it."
Anne gave her a fond smile.
"Pris, you could have said something so many times, and didn't. I think you are better at keeping secrets that anyone! But, to set your mind at rest…" Anne paused, sighing softly, "well, Phil was the first one to know I was an orphan, when we learned we had both been born in Bolingbroke. She was kind to come with me when I visited by parents' gravesites when I was with her for Christmas. She doesn't really know much of the story, though I did talk to her a little of Hopetown and Summerside. Gilbert knows the truth, now, about how Tom and I met, and so does Diana. Gilbert knows that Tom isn't really related to the Cuthberts out at Green Gables, but Di… actually, that part's a little hazy, but she knows, they both do, about how I could have come to Avonlea instead of Tom… but no one knows of your connection to the story through Mrs Spencer, save Tom… and now myself."
Anne paused, taking a breath. "Gilbert doesn't really have to know that part either… It really wasn't anyone's fault, the mix up that day, and I have to thank Mrs Spencer, really, for giving anyone from the orphanage a home… she gave one to Lily, and helped arrange one for Tom."
"Oh, Anne…" Priscilla's usually light voice drifted low. "Everyone found a home but for you…"
"I've found a home here," Anne took her friend's hand and squeezed. "I've good friends, and I have a good chance of making something of myself. That is all I ever hoped for."
Pris's eyes grew moist in response. "I wish I could feel as magnanimous as you do about it. All I feel is the injustice of it!"
"Oh, I've felt that too, believe me…" Anne's look turned wry. "It's a long, cold lesson to learn that the world doesn't owe you anything. That it's not what the world holds for you, it's what you bring to it. **** That's why I was so determined to try to come here to Redmond. I've learned that I have to be able to rely on myself if the chips are down. But equally… I've learned that I can rely on others for support, too."
Pris's smile was slow and relieved. "I'm so glad. You shouldn't feel you are on your own, Anne. I hope you never do. Any of us would walk over hot coals for you…" her tone grew teasing again, eyes falling upon the bloom from a certain Mr Blythe left for Miss Shirley at the front desk of the boarding house that morning; a sprig of lavender today, tucked into a buttonhole on her blouse, and one of many little notes and offerings he had arranged since they had returned from Avonlea. "Some," Pris continued, "more readily than others."
Anne understood her meaning, giving a blush-hued laugh.
"That seems to be going well, then?"
"Yes, thank you," Anne's color only deepened, more fetchingly than she knew.
"I'm glad about that, too," Pris added generously.
Anne looked on as Miss Grant took a long time to brush invisible crumbs off her skirts, opening and closing her mouth as if on the cusp of a question.
"You want to ask about Tom, don't you?" Anne interpreted gently.
That blonde head came up suddenly, caught out.
"I presume… he knows about you and Gilbert? Forgive me, Anne, I'm sure it's none of my – "
"Yes, Pris. Absolutely. I couldn't have come back here with that still… unresolved."
A flash of pain marred Anne's lovely features, and Priscilla could easily interpret how difficult the conversation had been, and not hard to guess Tom's reaction to such news.
"He loves you," Pris noted, wistfully. "In the same way Gilbert does, if a little less… dramatically."
Anne nodded, eyes blurring, even as she couldn't resist a muzzled smile at the joke.
"And of course, you love him."
Anne nodded again, not trusting herself to words.
"Well, that's good, for Gilbert to have a little competition," Pris said with a gleam in her eye. "Keep him on his toes."
Anne allowed a small, shuddering laugh. "I wish it didn't have to be a choice."
Pris surveyed her thoughtfully. "You'll always have Tom's friendship, Anne."
Anne dashed at a tear, meeting Pris's look, which was in that moment more open than she may have wanted.
"Do you have his friendship, Pris?" Anne was forming the question even as she was asking it, amazed at the reaction it garnered.
"I…" Pris began, suddenly flustered. "I wouldn't presume… that is, he's been kind enough to write…"
Anne blinked in surprise, tears superseded by astonishment.
So Tom was writing to Pris! Very well. He had a perfect right to, of course. Only - ! *****
"It's only been one or two letters, Anne," Pris defended quickly. "And a favour to me more than anything, as I didn't want to worry Mother that… well, that I was here without…"
Anne swallowed, determined not to make too much of it. Tom was entitled to write to whom he chose. He had a right to friendships outside of the one they shared. She was very pleased and happy for him. She would be pleased and happy for him.
"I understand. Truly I do. I hardly ever get a letter, except from my friend Katherine in Summerside…" and Tom, she thought, "and had little cause to write any… Well, maybe a few more, now, after my visit to Avonlea…" she gave a circumspect smile, contemplating Pris carefully. "Was that your mother I glimpsed, on the platform, seeing you off with your father at Bright River?"
"Yes," Pris sighed. "I have a brother, but he's younger than me, hopefully to start at Queen's in September. My parents… well, my mother… she would have been happy for me to take our school for a year or so and then have me marry a local farmer… I wanted to see a bit more of the world, first, and still do. Charlottetown was the first step. And then the school in Carmody, and now Kingsport, though that took enough convincing her. She…" Pris's lips tightened involuntarily, "she hasn't been well, really, for many years."
"Oh, Pris, I didn't know. I'm very sorry."
"Thank you. She's feeling better at the moment, thankfully, and was cheered by my visit back home for the break. Meanwhile, my father is cheered by the thought I am here, in the town he enjoyed his own studies in – he went to the Commercial College, and had a fine time of it, from what I gather."
"As are we," Anne smiled widely, eager to end things on a positive note. "We have the Freshman end of year dance next week. Gilbert is probably being bombarded with requests from the social committee about it as we speak."
"Will the outgoing President be required to make a speech?" Pris found her own knowing smile, just as keen as Anne to grab back on to their friendship with both hands.
Anne laughed softly, fingering her lavender cutting fondly. "He certainly hopes so!"
"And what, pray tell, have you got there, Matthew Cuthbert?" Rachel Lynde questioned, keen eyes narrowed towards the older man in the corner.
"Well, here is just some mail is all, Rachel," he replied placidly.
"Yes I can see that as clear as day. Mail addressed to your good self. As I live and breathe you're so secretive about it I might think you had a sweetheart, if I hadn't clear lost my mind."
Rachel's needles clicked accusingly to Matthew's ears, though he might have ignored the taunting challenge in her tone if not for Marilla's own curious look towards him from the kitchen bench, where she was preparing their afternoon tea.
"Just a few letters with that young Miss Shirley is all, Rachel," Matthew divulged slowly, flicking Marilla a wary, blue-eyed glance.
"Miss Shirley?" Rachel blustered. "The very girl who clear broke Tom's heart?"
"I wouldn't exactly put it that way, Rachel," Marilla's frowning response spoke more eloquently than her automatic denial.
"Can't see as you can put it much other way, Marilla Cuthbert. He was plum crazy about her, talked of nothing but her for months, went all the way over to Kingsport to call on her, invited her to spend time here, introduced her to us all and showed her round the farm proud as a peacock, and then has been sadder and quieter than a church mouse since they all packed themselves back off there again. If that isn't heartbroken then I don't know what is." Rachel huffed to herself, pleased with her irrefutable argument, and pounced on her final fortifying point. "Of course," she raised a derisive eyebrow, "this is what comes of educating women, that's what."
Marilla let out a long, frustrated breath. She was more worried about Tom than she wanted to acknowledge, and whilst she knew on an intellectual level it was uncharitable to lay all his recent restlessness and disquiet at the feet of Anne Shirley, if she was to shift the shadow of blame it might begin to fall on herself.
"Can't say as a letter or two does any harm…" Matthew persisted with more bullishness than he had perhaps demonstrated in several decades. "We opened our home to Tom. It's only Christian to offer the hand of friendship to his friend."
Rachel pursed her lips, almost annoyed to think Matthew had brought God into it. His gentle admonition hung in the air, but Marilla felt it as a stinging slap to the face. Had she taken up against Anne Shirley because she couldn't love Tom, or because she had instead fallen for John Blythe's boy? Was the slight she felt for Tom or for herself?
Marilla served the tea and hastily made her excuses, citing one of her headaches. Upstairs, still and quiet, she may indeed have offset the inevitability of a throbbing head, but received no relief from the clawing pain of her conscience.
Chapter Notes
I take my title here, as always, from Anne of the Island (Ch 22)
"The year is a book, isn't it, Marilla?"
*Hello Sullivan series! Quote taken in part from late in Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel (Anne of Avonlea in North America)
**William Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet (Act 1 Sc 5)
***Anne of Windy Poplars (Willows) Second Year (Ch 13)
****Hello Sullivan again! Possibly one of his loveliest original lines here.
*****Anne of the Island (Ch 5) – with a minor adjustment!