37 Anne Of Green Gables - Stephanie Poppins

Chapter 37: When Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert adopt an orphan from Nova Scotia, they assume the little boy that they receive into their home will be better than any hired help, and a good hand on the farm. Little do they realize, they are in for a greater surprise than any they have ever experienced in the quiet provincial town of Avonlea.

In this episode, there is some devastating news as Green Gables.

Transcript

This is S.

D.

Hudson Magic.

I am delighted to be able to read for you Anne of Green Gables.

This I consider to be my favourite story of all time.

And even though I am English and not Canadian,

I hope I will do this story justice.

Chapter 37 The Reaper Whose Name is Death Matthew,

What's the matter?

Matthew,

Are you sick?

It was Marilla who spoke,

Alarm in every jerky word.

Anne came through the hall,

Her hands full of white narcissus.

It was long before Anne could love the sight or odour of white narcissus again.

In time to hear her and to see Matthew standing in the porch doorway,

A folded paper in his hand and his face strangely drawn and grey.

Anne dropped her flowers and sprang across the kitchen to him at the same moment as Marilla.

They were both too late.

Before they could reach him,

Matthew had fallen across the threshold.

He's fainted,

Gasped Marilla.

Anne,

Run for Martin,

Quick,

Quick,

He's at the barn.

Martin,

The hired man who had just driven home from the post office,

Started at once for the doctor,

Calling at Orchard Slope on his way to send Mr and Mrs Barry over.

Mrs Lind,

Who was there on an errand,

Came too.

They found Anne and Marilla distractedly trying to restore Matthew to consciousness.

Mrs Lind pushed them gently aside,

Tried his pulse,

Then laid her ear over his heart.

She looked at their anxious faces sorrowfully and the tears came into her eyes.

Oh Marilla,

I don't think we can do anything for him.

Mrs Lind,

You don't think,

You can't think,

Matthew is,

Is.

.

.

Anne could not say the dreadful word.

She turned sick and pallid.

Child,

Yes,

I'm afraid of it.

Look at his face.

When you've seen that look as often as I have,

You'll know what it means.

Anne looked at the still face and there beheld the seal of the Great Presence.

When the doctor came,

He said that death had been instantaneous and probably painless,

Caused in all likelihood by some sudden shock.

The secret of the shock was discovered to be in the paper Matthew had held and which Martin had brought from the office that morning.

It contained an account of the failure of the Abbey Bank.

The news spread quickly through Avonlea and all day friends and neighbours thronged Green Gables and came and went on errands of kindness for the dead and the living.

For the first time,

Shy,

Quiet Matthew Cuthbert was a person of central importance.

The white majesty of death had fallen on him and set him apart as one crown.

When the calm night came softly down over Green Gables,

The old house was hushed and tranquil.

In the parlour lay Matthew Cuthbert in his coffin,

His long grey hair framing his placid face,

On which there was a little kindly smile as if he but slept,

Dreaming pleasant dreams.

There were flowers about him,

Sweet,

Old-fashioned flowers which his mother had planted in the homestead garden in her bridal days,

For which Matthew always had a secret,

Wordless laugh.

Anne had gathered them and brought them to him,

Her anguished,

Tearless eyes burning in her white face.

It was the last thing she could do for him.

The Barrys and Mrs Lynn stayed with them that night.

Diana,

Going to the East Gable,

Where Anne was standing at her window,

Said gently,

Anne dear,

Would you like me to sleep with you tonight?

Thank you,

Diana.

Anne looked earnestly into her friend's face.

I think you won't misunderstand me when I say I want to be alone.

I'm not afraid.

I haven't been alone one minute since it happened and I want to be.

I want to be quite silent and quiet and try to realise it.

I can't realise it.

Half the time it seems to me that Matthew can't be dead and the other half it seems as if he must have been dead for a long time and I've had this horrible dull ache ever since.

Diana did not quite understand.

Marilla's impassioned grief,

Breaking all the bounds of natural reserve and lifelong habit in its stormy rush,

She could comprehend better than Anne's tearless agony.

But she went away kindly,

Leaving Anne alone to keep her first vigil with sorrow.

Anne hoped that the tears would come in solitude.

It seemed to her a terrible thing that she could not shed a tear for Matthew,

Whom she had loved so much and who had been so kind to her.

Matthew,

Who had walked with her last evening at sunset,

And was now lying in the dim room below with that awful piece on his brow.

But no tears came at first,

Even when she knelt by her window in the darkness and prayed,

Looking up to the stars beyond the hills.

No tears,

Only the same horrible dull ache of misery that kept on aching until she fell asleep,

Worn out with the day's pain and excitement.

In the night she wakened with the stillness and the darkness about her and the recollection of the day came over her like a wave of sorrow.

She could see Matthew's face smiling at her as he had smiled when they parted at the gate that last evening.

She could hear his voice saying,

My girl,

My girl that I'm proud of.

Then the tears came and Anne wept her heart out.

Marilla heard her and crept in to comfort her.

There,

There,

Don't cry so,

Dearie.

It can't bring him back.

It isn't right to cry so.

I knew that today,

But I couldn't help it then.

He'd always been such a good,

Kind brother to me,

But God knows best.

Oh,

Just let me cry,

Marilla,

Sobbed Anne.

The tears don't hurt me like that ache did.

Stay here for a little while with me and keep your arm about me,

So.

I couldn't have Diana stay.

She's good and kind and sweet,

But it's not her sorrow.

She's outside of it and she couldn't come close enough to my heart to help me.

It's our sorrow,

Yours and mine.

Oh,

Marilla,

What shall we do without him?

We've got each other,

Anne.

We've got each other,

Anne.

I don't know what I'd do if you weren't here and if you'd never come.

I know I've been kind of strict and harsh with you,

Maybe,

But you mustn't think I didn't love you as well as Matthew did for all that.

I want to tell you now when I can.

It's never been easy for me to say things out of my heart,

But at times like this it's easier.

I love you as dear as if you were my own flesh and blood and you've been my joy and comfort ever since you came to Green Gables.

Two days afterward they carried Matthew Cuthbert over his homestead threshold and away from the fields he had tilled and the orchards he had loved and the trees he had planted.

And then Avonlea settled back to its usual placidity.

And even at Green Gables affairs slipped into their own groove and work was done and duties fulfilled with regularity as before,

Although always with the aching sense of loss in all familiar things.

Anne,

New to grief,

Thought it almost sad that it could be so,

That they could go on in the same old way.

She felt something like shame and remorse when she discovered the sunrises behind the firs and the pale pink buds opening in the garden gave her the olden rush of gladness when she saw them.

That Diana's visits were pleasant to her still and Diana's merry words and ways moved her to laughter and smiles.

That in brief the beautiful world of blossom and love and friendship had lost none of its power to please her fancy and thrill her heart.

That life still sometimes called to her with many insistent voices.

It seems like disloyalty to Matthew somehow to find pleasure in these things now he's gone,

She said wistfully to Mrs.

Allen one evening when they were together in the manse garden.

I miss him so much,

All the time.

And yet,

Mrs.

Allen,

The world and life seem very beautiful and interesting to me for all.

Today Diana said something funny and I found myself laughing.

I thought when it happened I could never laugh again.

And it somehow seems as if I oughtn't to.

When Matthew was here he liked to hear you laugh and he liked to know you found pleasure in the pleasant things around you,

Said Mrs.

Allen gently.

He is away now and he likes to know it's just the same.

I'm sure we should not shut our hearts against the healing influences that nature offers,

But I can understand your feeling.

I think we all experience the same thing.

We resent the thought that anything could please us when someone we love is no longer here to share that pleasure with us and we almost feel as if we were unfaithful to our sorrow when we find our interest in life returning.

I was down to the graveyard to plant a rose bush on his grave this afternoon,

Said Anne dreamily.

I took a slip of the little white Scotch rose bud his mother brought from Scotland long ago.

Matthew always liked those roses the best.

They were so small and sweet.

It made me feel glad I could plant it by his grave as if I were doing something that must please him in taking it there.

I hope he has roses like that in heaven.

Perhaps the souls of all those little white roses that he loved for so many summers were all there to meet him.

I must go home now.

Marilla is all alone and she gets lonely at twilight.

She will be lonelier still,

I fear,

When you go back away to college,

Said Mrs.

Allen.

Anne did not reply.

She said goodnight and went slowly back to Green Gables.

Marilla was sitting on the front doorstep and Anne sat down beside her.

The door was open behind them,

Held back by a big pink conch shell with hints of sea sunsets in its smooth inner convolutions.

Anne gathered some sprays of pale yellow honeysuckle and put them in her hair.

She liked the delicious hint of fragrance as some aerial benediction above her every time she moved.

Dr.

Spencer was here while you were away,

Marilla said.

He says the specialist will be in town tomorrow and he insists I must go and have my eyes examined.

I suppose I'd better go and have it over.

I'd be more thankful if the man could give me the right glasses to suit my eyes.

You won't mind staying here alone while I'm away,

Will you?

Martin will have to drive me in and there's ironing and baking to do.

I shall be alright.

Diana will come over for company.

I shall attend to the ironing and baking beautifully.

You needn't fear I'll starch the handkerchiefs or flavour the cape with liniment.

Marilla laughed.

What a girl you were for making mistakes in them days,

Anne.

You were always getting into scrapes.

I did used to think you were possessed.

Do you mind the time you dyed your hair?

Yes indeed,

I shall never forget it,

Smiled Anne,

Touching the heavy braid of hair that was wound about her shapely head.

I laugh a little now sometimes when I think what a worry my hair used to be,

But I don't laugh much because it was a real trouble then.

I did suffer terribly over my hair and my freckles.

My freckles are really gone and people are nice enough to tell me my hair is auburn now.

All but Josie Pie.

She informed me yesterday she really thought it was redder than ever,

Or at least my black dress made it look redder,

And she asked me if people who had red hair ever got used to having it.

Marilla,

I've almost decided to give up trying to like Josie Pie.

I've made what I would call a heroic effect to like her,

But Josie Pie will not be liked.

Josie is a pie,

Said Marilla sharply,

So she can't help being disagreeable.

I suppose people of that kind serve some useful purpose in society,

But I must say I don't know what it is any more than I know the use of thistles.

Is Josie going to teach?

No,

She's going back to Queens next year,

So are Rudy Spurgeon and Charlie Sloan.

Jane and Ruby are going to teach and they've both got schools.

Jane at Newbridge and Ruby at someplace up west.

Gilbert Blythe is going to teach too,

Isn't he?

Yes.

What a nice looking fellow he is,

Said Marilla absently.

I saw him in church last Sunday and he seemed so tall and manly.

He looks a lot like his father did at that age.

Jonathan Blythe was a nice boy.

We used to be real good friends,

He and I.

People called him my beau.

Anne looked up with swift interest.

Oh Marilla,

And what happened?

Why didn't you.

.

.

We had a quarrel,

And I wouldn't forgive him when he asked me to.

I meant to after a while,

But I was sulky and angry and I wanted to punish him first.

He never came back.

The Blythes were all mighty independent,

But I always felt rather sorry.

I've always kind of wished I'd forgiven him when I had the chance.

So you've had a bit of a relationship?

Yes,

I suppose you might call it that.

You wouldn't think so to look at me,

Would you?

But you never can tell about people from their outsides.

Everybody has forgotten about me and John.

I'd forgotten myself.

But it all came back to me when I saw Gilbert last Sunday.

He was a nice fellow.

But it all came back to me when I saw Gilbert last Sunday.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter.

If you did,

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Reviews

Oh my how my heart aches. Loved Matthew so much 💔

Oh darling Matthew 😭🙏🏽 what a lovely human he portrayed. And marilla’s declaration at the end! My my. Thanks again for this series, so priceless❤️🌸🙏🏽