Anne of the Island by L.
M.
Montgomery Read by Stephanie Poppins Chapter 12 Averil's Atonement What are you dreaming of,
Anne?
The two girls were loitering one evening in a fairy hollow of the brook.
Ferns nodded in it,
And little grasses were green,
And wild pears hung finely scented,
White curtains around it.
Anne roused herself from her reverie with a happy sigh.
I was thinking up my story,
Diana.
Oh,
Have you really begun it?
Cried Diana,
All alight with eager interest in a moment.
Yes,
I've only a few pages written,
But I have it all pretty well thought out.
I've had such a time to get a suitable plot.
None of the plots that suggested themselves suited a girl named Averil.
Couldn't you have changed her name?
No,
The thing was impossible.
I tried to,
But I couldn't do it any more than I could change yours.
Averil was so real to me that no matter what other name I tried to give her,
I just thought of her as Averil behind it all.
But finally I got a plot that matched her.
Then came the excitement of choosing names for all my characters.
You have no idea how fascinating that is.
I've lain awake for hours thinking over those names.
The hero's name is Percival Dalrymple.
Have you named all the characters?
Asked Diana wistfully.
If you hadn't,
I was going to ask you to let me name one.
Just some unimportant person.
I'd feel as if I had a share in the story then.
You may name the little Hyatt boy who lived with the Leicesters,
Conceded Anne.
He's not very important,
But he's the only one left unnamed.
Call him Raymond FitzOsborne,
Suggested Diana,
Who had a store of such names laid away in her memory,
Relics of the old story club,
Which she and Anne and Jane Andrews and Ruby Gillies had had in their school days.
Anne shook her head doubtfully.
I'm afraid that is too aristocratic a name for a chore boy,
Diana.
I couldn't imagine a FitzOsborne feeding pigs and picking up chips,
Could you?
Diana didn't see why,
If you had an imagination at all,
You couldn't stretch it to that extent.
But probably Anne knew best,
And the chore boy was finally christened Robert Ray,
To be called Bobby,
Should occasion arise.
How much do you suppose you'll get for it?
Asked Diana.
But Anne had not thought about this at all.
She was in pursuit of fame,
Not filthy lucre,
And her literary dreams were as yet untainted by mercenary considerations.
You'll let me read it,
Won't you?
Pleaded Diana.
When it is finished,
I'll read it to you and Mr Harrison,
And I shall want you to criticise it severely.
No one else shall see it till it's published.
How are you going to end it?
Happily or unhappily?
I'm not sure.
I'd like it to end up unhappily,
Because that would be so much more romantic.
But I understand editors have a prejudice against sad endings.
I heard Professor Hamilton say once,
Nobody but a genius should try to write an unhappy ending.
And,
Concluded Anne modestly,
I'm anything but a genius.
Oh,
I like happy endings best.
You'd better let him marry her,
Said Diana,
Who,
Especially since her engagement to Fred,
Thought this was how every story should end.
But you like to cry over stories.
Oh yes,
In the middle of them,
But I like everything to come out right at last.
I must have one pathetic scene in it,
Said Anne thoughtfully.
I might let Robert Ray be injured in an accident and have a death scene.
No,
You mustn't kill Bobby off,
Declared Diana laughing.
He belongs to me and I want him to live and flourish.
Kill somebody else if you have to.
For the next fortnight,
Anne writhed or reveled according to mood in her literary pursuits.
Now she would be jubilant over a brilliant idea.
Now despairing because some contrary character would not behave properly.
Diana could not understand this.
Make them do what you want them to,
She said.
I can't,
Mourned Anne.
Avril's such an unmanageable heroine.
She will do and say things I never meant her to.
Then that spoils everything that went before and I have to write it all over again.
Finally,
However,
The story was finished and Anne read it to Diana in the seclusion of the porch gable.
She had achieved her pathetic scene without sacrificing Robert Ray and she kept a watchful eye on Diana as she read it.
Diana rose to the occasion and cried properly.
But when the end came,
She looked a little disappointed.
Why did you kill Maurice Lennox?
She asked reproachfully.
He was the villain,
Protested Anne.
He had to be punished.
I like him best of all,
Said unreasonable Diana.
Well,
He's dead and he'll have to stay dead,
Said Anne,
Rather resentfully.
If I'd let him live,
He'd have gone on persecuting Avril and Percival.
Yes,
Unless you'd reformed him.
Then that wouldn't have been romantic,
Diana.
And besides,
It would have made the story too long.
Well,
Anyway,
It's a perfectly elegant story,
Anne,
And it'll make you famous of that,
I'm sure.
Have you got a title for it?
Oh,
I decided on the title long ago.
I call it Avril's Atonement.
Doesn't that sound nice and alliterative?
Now,
Diana,
Tell me candidly,
Do you see any faults in my story?
Well,
Hesitated Diana,
That part where Avril makes the cake doesn't seem to be quite romantic enough to match the rest.
It's just what anybody might do.
Heroine shouldn't do cooking,
I think.
Why,
That is where the humour comes in.
It's one of the best parts of the whole story,
Said Anne.
It may be stated that in this,
She was quite right.
Diana prudently refrained from any further criticism,
But Mr Harrison was much harder to please.
First,
He told Anne there was entirely too much description in the story.
Cut out all the flowery passages,
He said,
Unfeelingly.
Anne had an uncomfortable conviction that Mr Harrison was right,
And she forced herself to expunge most of her beloved descriptions,
Though it took three rewritings before the story could be pruned down to please the fastidious Mr Harrison.
I've left out all the descriptions but the sunset,
She said at last.
I simply couldn't let that go.
It was the best of them all.
It hasn't anything to do with the story,
Said Mr Harrison,
And you shouldn't have laid the scene amongst rich city people.
What do you know of them?
Why didn't you lay it right down here in Avonlea?
Changing the name,
Of course,
Or else Mrs Rachel Lind would probably think she was the heroine.
All that would never have done,
Protested Anne.
Avonlea is the dearest place in the world,
But it isn't quite romantic enough for the scene in the story.
I dare say there's been many a romance in Avonlea,
And many a tragedy too,
Said Mr Harrison dryly.
But your folks ain't like real folks anywhere.
They talk too much and use too high-flown language.
There's one place where that Dalrymple chap talks even on for two pages and never lets the girl get a word in edgewise.
If he'd have done that in real life,
She'd have pitched him.
I don't believe it,
Said Anne flatly.
In her secret soul,
She thought that the beautiful,
Poetic things said to Avril would win any girl's heart completely.
Besides,
It was gruesome to hear of Avril,
The stately queen-like Avril,
Pitching anyone.
Avril declined her suitors.
Anyhow,
Resumed the merciless Mr Harrison,
I don't see why Maurice Lennox didn't get her.
He was twice the man the other is.
He did bad things,
But he did them.
Percival hadn't time for anything but moaning.
Moaning?
That was even worse than pitching.
Maurice Lennox was the villain,
Said Anne indignantly.
I don't see why everyone likes him better than Percival.
Percival is too good.
He's aggravating.
Next time you write about a hero,
Put a little spice of human nature in him.
Avril couldn't have married Maurice.
He was bad.
She'd have reformed him.
You can reform a man.
You can't reform a jellyfish,
Of course.
Your story ain't bad.
It's kind of interesting,
I'll admit.
But you're too young to write a story that would be worthwhile.
Wait ten years.
Anne made up her mind the next time she wrote a story,
She wouldn't ask anybody to criticise it.
It was too discouraging.
She would not read the story to Gilbert,
Although she told him about it.
If it is a success,
You'll see it when it's published,
Gilbert.
But if it's a failure,
No-one shall see it.
Marilla knew nothing about the venture.
In imagination,
Anne saw herself reading a story out of a magazine to Marilla,
Entrapping her into praise of it.
For in an imagination,
All things are possible.
And then triumphantly announcing herself the author.
