Anne Of Avonlea (Bedtime Story) Chapter 30
Anne Shirley returns, no longer the fiery orphan of Green Gables but a young woman stepping into adulthood. Now a schoolteacher in Avonlea, she brings her boundless imagination and compassionate heart to her students and community. Along the way, she navigates friendships, mischievous adventures, and the joys and challenges of growing up. Filled with warmth, humor, and life’s quiet yet profound lessons, Anne of Avonlea is a timeless story of self-discovery, kindness, and the beauty of embracing change. Let Anne’s journey remind you of the magic in everyday moments.
Transcript
CHAPTER THIRTY A WEDDING AT THE STONE HOUSE The last week in August came.
Miss Lavender was to be married in it.
Two weeks later Anne and Gilbert would leave for Redmond College.
In a week's time Miss Rachel Lynde would move to Green Gables and set up her lairs and pinnates in the erstwhile spare room,
Which was already prepared for her coming.
She had sought all her superfluous household cleanings by auction and was present revealing in the congenial occupation of helping the Allens back up.
Mr.
Allen was to preach his farewell sermon the next Sunday.
The old order was changing rapidly to give place to the new,
As Anne felt with a little sadness,
Treading all her excitement and happiness.
''Changes ain't totally pleasant but they are excellent things,
'' said Mr.
Harrison philosophically.
''Two years is about long enough for things to stay exactly the same.
If they stayed but any longer they might grow mossy.
'' Mr.
Harrison was smoking on his veranda.
His wife had self-sacrificingly told that he might smoke in the house if he took care to sit by an open window.
Mr.
Harrison rewarded this concession by going outdoors altogether to smoke in fine weather and so mutual good will reign.
Anne had come over to ask Mrs.
Harrison for some of her yellow dahlias.
She and Diana were going through to Eco Lodge that evening to help Miss Lavender and Charlotte the Fourth with their final preparations for tomorrow's bridal.
Miss Lavender herself never had dahlias.
She did not like them and they would not have suited the fine retirement of her old-fashioned garden,
But flowers of any kind were rather scarce in Avonlea and the neighboring districts that summer.
Thanks to Uncle Abe's storm,
And Anne and Diana thought that certain old cream-colored stone jug,
Usually kept sacred to donuts,
Brimmed over with yellow dahlias,
Would be just the thing to set in a dim angle of the stone-house stairs against the dark background of red-hull paper.
''I suppose you'll be starting off for college in a fortnight's time,
'' continued Mr.
Harrison.
''Well,
We are going to miss you an awful lot,
Emily and me,
To be sure.
Miss Lind will be over there in your place,
And nobody but substitute can be found for them.
The irony of Mr.
Harrison's stone is quite untransferable to paper.
In spite of his wife's intimacy with Mrs.
Lind,
The best that could be said of the relationship between her and Mr.
Harrison,
Even under the new regime,
Was that they preserved an armed neutrality.
''Yes,
I am going,
'' said Anne.
''I am very glad with my head,
And very sorry with my heart.
I suppose you'll be scooping up all the honors that are lying round loose at Redmond.
I may try for one or two of them,
'' confessed Anne,
''but I don't care so much for things like that,
As I did two years ago.
What I want to get out of my college course is some knowledge of the best way of living life and doing the most and best with it.
I want to learn to understand and help other people and myself.
'' Mr.
Harrison nodded.
''That's the idea exactly.
That is what college ought to be for,
Instead of for turning out a lot of B.
A.
's so chock full of book-learning and vanity that there ain't room for anything else.
'' ''You're all right.
College won't be able to do you much harm,
I reckon.
'' Diane and Anne drove over to E.
College after tea,
Taking with them all the flowers spoiled that several predatory expeditions in their own and their neighbors' gardens had yielded.
They found the stone house a gawk with excitement.
Charlotte the fourth was flying around with such whim and briskness that her blue bows seemed really to possess the power of being everywhere at once.
Like the helmet of Navarre,
Charlotte's blue bows waved ever in the thickest of the fray.
''Praise to be goodness you've come,
'' she said devoutly,
''for there's heap of things to do,
And the frosting on that cake won't harden.
There's all the silver to be rubbed up,
To be rubbed up yet,
And the horse-hair trunk to be packed,
And the roosters for the chicken salad are running out beyond at the hen-house yet crowing.
Miss Shirley,
Ma'am,
And Miss Lavender ain't to be trusted.
Do a thing.
'' I was thankful when Mr.
Irving came a few minutes ago and took her off for a walk in the woods.
''Quoting's all right in its place,
Miss Shirley,
Ma'am,
But if you try to mix it up with cooking and scorching everything spoiled,
That is my opinion,
Miss Shirley,
Ma'am.
'' Anne and Diana worked so hardly that by ten o'clock even Charlotte the fourth was satisfied.
She braided her hair in innumerable plates and took her weary little bones off to bed.
''I'm sure I shan't sleep a blessed wink,
Miss Shirley,
Ma'am,
For fear that something will go wrong at the last minute,
The cream won't whip,
Or Mr.
Irving will have a stroke and not be able to come.
'' ''He isn't in the habit of having strokes,
Is he?
'' asked Diana,
The dimpled corners of her mouth twitching.
To Diana,
Charlotte the fourth was,
If not exactly a thing of beauty,
Certainly a joy forever.
''They are not things that go by habit,
'' said Charlotte the fourth with dignity.
''They just happen,
And there you are.
Anybody can have a stroke,
You don't have to learn how,
Mr.
Irving looks,
A lot like an uncle of mine that had one once,
Just as he was sitting down to dinner one day.
But maybe everything will go all right in this world,
You just got to hope for the best and prepare for the worst,
And take whatever God sends.
'' ''The only thing that I am worried about is that it won't be fine tomorrow,
'' said Diana.
Uncle Abe predicted rain for the middle of the week,
And ever since the big storm I cannot help believing there is a good deal in what Uncle Abe says.
And who knew better than Diana just how much Uncle Abe had to do with the storm was not much disturbed by this.
She slept the sleep of the just and weary,
And was roused on earthy hour by Charlotte the fourth.
''Oh,
Miss Shirley,
Ma'am,
It's awful to call you so early,
Came wailing through the keyhole,
But there's so much to do yet,
And oh,
Miss Shirley,
Ma'am,
I'm scared it's going to rain,
And I wish you'd get up and tell me you think it ain't,
'' Anne flew to the window,
Hoping against hope that Charlotte the fourth was saying this merely by way of rousing her effectually.
But alas,
The morning did look unpropitious.
Below the window,
Miss Lavender's garden,
Which should have been a glory of pale virgin sunshine,
Lay dim and windless,
And the sky over the first was dark with moody clouds.
''Isn't it too mean?
'' said Diana.
''We must hope for the best,
'' said Anne determinedly.
''If it only doesn't actually rain.
A cool pearly-grey day like this would really be nicer than hot sunshine.
But it will rain,
'' moaned Charlotte,
Creeping into the room,
A figure of fun,
With her many braids wound about her hair at the ends,
Tied up with the white thread,
Sticking out in all directions.
''It will hold off till the last minute,
And then poor cats and dogs,
And all the folks will get soppy and drag mud all over the house,
And they won't be able to be married under the honeysuckle,
And it's awful unlucky for no sun to shine on a bride.
Say what you say,
Miss Shirley,
Ma'am.
I knew things were going too well to last.
'' Charlotte IV seemed certainly to have borrowed a leaf out of Miss Eliza Andrews' book.
It did not rain,
Though it kept on looking as if it meant to.
By noon the rooms were decorated,
The table beautifully laid,
And upstairs was waiting a bride adorned for her husband.
''You do look sweet,
'' said Anne rapturously.
''Lovely,
'' echoed Diana.
''Everything is ready in this Shirley,
Ma'am,
And nothing dreadful has happened.
Yet,
'' was Charlotte's cheerful statement,
As she betook herself to a little back room to dress.
Out came all the braids.
The resultant rampant prickliness was plaited into two tails and tied,
Not with two bows alone,
But with four brand-new ribbons.
Brightly blue,
The two upper bows rather gave the impression of overgrown wings sprouting from Charlotte's neck,
Somewhat after the fashion of Raphael's chirrups.
But Charlotte IV thought them very beautiful,
And after she had rustled into a white dress so stiffly arched that it could stand alone,
She surveyed herself in her glass with great satisfaction,
A satisfaction which lasted until she went out in the hall and caught a glimpse through the spare room door of a tall girl in some softly clean gown,
Pinning white star-like flowers on the smooth ripples of her ruddy hair.
''Oh,
I will never be able to look like Miss Shirley,
'' thought poor Charlotte despairingly.
''You just have to be bored so,
I guess.
Don't seems it any amount of practice could give you that air.
By one o'clock the guests had come,
Including Mr.
And Miss Allan,
For Mr.
Allan was to perform the ceremony in the absence of the crafted minister on his vacation.
There was no formality about the marriage.
Miss Lavender came down the stairs to meet her bridegroom at the foot,
And as she took her hand she lifted her big brown eyes to his,
The look that made Charlotte IV,
Who intercepted it,
Feel clearer than ever.
They went out to the honeysuckle arbor where Mr.
Allan was awaiting them.
The guests grouped themselves as they pleased.
Anne and Diane stood by the old stone bench with Charlotte IV between them,
Desperately clutching their hands in her cold,
Generous little paws.
Mr.
Allan opened his blue book,
And the ceremony proceeded,
Just as Miss Lavender and Stephen Irving,
Her pronounced man and wife,
A very beautiful and symbolic thing happened.
The sun suddenly burst through the grey and poured a floor of radiance on the happy bride.
Instantly the garden was alive with dancing shadows and flickering lights.
''What a lovely omen,
'' thought Anne,
As she ran to kiss the bride.
Then the three girls left the rest of the guests,
Laughing round the bridal pair,
While they flew into the house to see that all was in readiness.
''Thanks to be-goodness it's over,
Miss Shirley,
Ma'am,
'' prayed Charlotte IV,
''and they are married safe and sound,
No matter what happens now.
The bags of rice are in the pantry,
Ma'am,
And the old shoes are behind the door,
And the cream for whipping is on the cellar steps.
At half-past two Mr.
And Miss Irving left,
And everybody went to Bright River to see them off on the afternoon train.
As Miss Lavender,
I beg her pardon,
Miss Irving,
Stepped from the door of her old home,
Gilbert and the girls,
Through the rice,
And Charlotte IV hurled an old shoe with such excellent aim that she struck Mr.
Allen squarely on the head,
But it was received for Paul to give the prettiest send-off.
He bopped out of the porch,
Bringing furiously a huge old brass dinner bell,
Which had adorned the dining-room mantel.
Paul's only motive was to make a joyful noise,
But as the clangor died away from point and curve and hill across the river,
Came the chime of fairy wedding bells,
Ringing clearly,
Sweetly,
Faintly,
And more faint,
As if Miss Lavender's billowed echoes were bidding her greeting and farewell,
And so amid this benediction of sweet sounds Miss Lavender drove away from the old life of dreams and make-believes to a fuller life of realities in the busy world beyond.
Two hours later Anne and Charlotte IV came down the lane again.
Gilbert had called the Westgraften on an errand,
And Diana had to keep an engagement at home.
Anne and Charlotte had come back to put things in order and lock up the little stone house.
The garden was a pool of late golden sunshine,
With butterflies hovering and bees booming,
But the little house had already that indefinable air of desolation.
Oh,
Dear me,
Don't it look lonesome,
Sniffed Charlotte IV,
Who had been crying all the way home from the station.
A wedding ain't much cheerful than a funeral,
After all,
When it's all over,
Miss Shirley Ma'am.
A busy evening followed.
The decorations had to be removed,
The dishes washed,
The uneaten delicacies packed into a basket for the decoration of Charlotte IV's young brothers at home.
Anne would not rest until everything was in apple-pie order.
After Charlotte had gone home with her plunder,
Anne went over the steel rooms,
Feeling like one who trod alone some banged hall deserted,
And closed the blinds.
Then she locked the door and sat down under the silver poplar to wait for Gilbert,
Feeling very tired,
But still unwaveringly thinking long,
Long thoughts.
What are you thinking of,
Anne?
Asked Gilbert,
Coming down the walk he had left his horse and buggy out of the road.
Oh,
Miss Lavender and Mr.
Irving,
Answered Anne dreamily,
Isn't it beautiful to think how everything has turned out,
How they have come together again,
After all the years of separation and misunderstanding?
Yes,
It is beautiful,
Said Gilbert,
Looking steadily down into Anne's uplifted face.
But wouldn't it have been more beautiful still,
Anne,
If there had been no separation or misunderstanding,
If they had come hand in hand all the way through life with no memories behind them but those which belonged to each other?
For a moment Anne's heart fluttered queerly,
And for the first time her eyes faltered under Gilbert's gaze,
And a rosy flush stained the paleness of her face.
It was as if the eel had flung before her inner consciousness had been lifted,
Giving to her view a revelation of unexpected feelings and realities.
Perhaps after all,
Romance did not come into one's life with pomp and blare.
Like a gay knight riding down,
Perhaps it crept to one's side like an old friend through quiet waves.
Perhaps it revealed itself in screaming prose,
Until some sudden shaft of illumination flung atward its pages,
Betrayed the rhythm and the music.
Perhaps love unfolded naturally out of beautiful friendship,
As a golden heart rose slipping from its green steed.
Then the wheel dropped again,
But the Anne who walked up the dark lane was not quite the same Anne who had driven gaily down it the evening before.
The page of girlhood had been turned,
As by an unseen finger,
And the page of womanhood was before her with all its charm and mystery,
Its pain and gladness.
Gilbert wisely said nothing more,
But in his silence he read the history of the next four years.
In the light of Anne's remembered blush,
Four years of earnest,
Happy work and then the garden of useful knowledge gained,
And a sweet heart won.
Behind them in the garden the little stone house brooded among the shadows.
It was lonely,
But not forsaken,
Yet not yet done with dreams and laughter,
And the joy of life.
There were to be future summers for the little stone house.
Meanwhile it could wait,
And over the river in purple durants the echoes bided their time.
