Anne Of Avonlea (Bedtime Story) Part 23

"Anne of Avonlea" follows the adventures of Anne Shirley as she begins her career as a schoolteacher in the small town of Avonlea. As Anne navigates the challenges of teaching and forming relationships with her students, she also experiences personal growth and learns valuable life lessons. Along the way, she encounters a variety of colorful characters and gets into humorous and heartwarming escapades. Anne's passion, imagination, and kindness continue to shine in this enchanting sequel to "Anne of Green Gables."

Transcript

Chapter 23 Miss Lavender's Romance I think I'll take a walk through to Ecolodge this evening,

Said Anne one Friday afternoon in December.

It looks like snow,

Said Marilla dubiously.

I'll be there before the snow comes,

And I mean to stay all night.

Diana cannot go because she has company,

And I'm sure Miss Lavender will be looking for me tonight.

It's a whole fortnight since I was there.

Anne had paid many visits to Ecolodge since that October day.

Sometimes she and Diana drove around the road,

Sometimes they walked through the woods.

When Diana could not go,

Anne went alone.

Between her and Miss Lavender had sprung one of those fervent,

Helpful friendships possible only between a woman who has kept a freshness of youth in her heart and a soul,

And a girl whose imagination and intuition supplied the place of experience.

Anne had at last discovered a real kindred spirit.

While into the little lady's lonely,

Sequestered life-dreams Anne and Diana came with the wholesome joy and exhilaration of the outer existence,

Which Miss Lavender,

By the word for God,

Had long ceased to share.

They brought an atmosphere of youth and reality to the little stone house.

Charlotte the fourth always greeted them with her very whitest smile,

And Charlotte's smiles were fearfully white,

Loving them for the sake of her adored mistress as well as for their own.

Never had there been such high chinks held in the little stone house as were held there that beautiful,

Late-lingering autumn,

When November seemed October over again,

And even December aped the sunshine and hazes of summer.

But on this particular day it seemed as if December had remembered that it was time for winter,

And had turned suddenly dull and brooding,

With the windless hush predictive of her of coming snow.

Nevertheless,

Anne keenly enjoyed her walk through the great grey maze of the beachlands,

Though alone she never found it lonely.

Her imagination peopled her path with merry companions,

And with these she carried a gay,

Pretended conversation that was prettier and more fascinating than conversations are apt to be in real life,

Where people sometimes fail most lamentably to talk up to the requirements.

In a make-believe assembly of joy,

Spirits,

Everybody says just the thing you want her to say,

And so gives you the chance to say just what you want to say.

Attended by this invisible company,

Anne traversed the woods and arrived at the fur lane.

Just as broad,

Feathery flakes began to flutter down softly,

At the first bend she came upon Miss Lavender,

Standing under a big,

Broad branching fir.

She wore a gown of warm,

Rich red,

And her head and shoulders were wrapped in a silvery-gray silk shawl.

You look like the queen of the fir-woods fairies,

Called Anne merrily.

I thought you would come tonight,

Anne,

Said Miss Lavender,

Running forward.

I am doubly glad,

For Charlotte the Ford is away.

Her mother is sick,

And she had to go home for the night.

I should have been very lonely if you hadn't come.

Even the dreams and the echoes wouldn't have been enough company.

Oh,

Anne,

How pretty you are,

She added suddenly,

Looking up the tall,

Slim girl with the soft rose flush of walking on her face.

How pretty and how young!

It is so delightful to be seventeen,

Isn't it?

I do envy you,

Concluded Miss Lavender candidly.

You are only seventeen at heart,

Smiled Anne.

No,

I am old,

Or rather middle-aged.

Which is far worse,

Sighed Miss Lavender.

Sometimes I can pretend I am not,

But at other times I realize it.

And I can't reconcile myself to it,

As most women seem to.

I am just as rebellious as I was when I discovered my first gray hair.

Now Anne,

Don't look as if you were trying to understand.

Seventeen cannot understand.

I am going to pretend right away that I am seventeen too.

And I can do it,

Now that you are here.

You always bring youth in your hand,

Like a gift.

We are going to have a jolly evening.

Tea first.

What do you want for tea?

We'll have whatever you like.

Do you think of something nice and indigestible?

There were sounds of riot and myrrh in the little stone house that night,

What with cooking and feasting and making candy and laughing and pretending.

It is quite true that Miss Lavender and Anne comported themselves in a fashion entirely unsuited to the dignity of a spinster of forty-five and a sedate schoolman.

Then,

When they were tired,

They sat down on the rug before the grid in the parlor,

Lighted only by the soft fireshine and perfumed deliciously by Miss Lavender's open-roast jar in the mantel.

The wind had risen and was sighing and wailing around the eaves,

And the snow was tudding softly against the windows,

As if hundred-storm sprites were tapping for entrance.

I'm so glad you are here,

Anne,

Said Miss Lavender,

Nibbling at her candy.

If you weren't I should be so blue,

Very blue,

Almost navy blue.

Dreams and make-believes are all very well in the daytime and the sunshine,

But when dark and storm come they fail to satisfy.

One wants the real things then,

But you don't know this.

Seventeen never knows it.

At seventeen dreams do satisfy because you think the realities are waiting for you further on.

When I was seventeen,

Anne,

I didn't think forty-five would find me,

A white-haired little old maid with nothing but dreams to fill my life.

But you aren't old,

Maid,

Said Anne,

Smiling into Miss Lavender's wistful wood-brown eyes.

Old maids are born.

They don't become.

Some are born old maidens.

Some achieve old maidenhood,

And some have old maidenhood's trust upon them,

Erudite Miss Lavender whimsically.

You are one of those who have achieved it then,

Laughed Anne,

And you've done it so beautifully that if every old maid were like you they would come into the fashion,

I think.

I always like to do things as well as possible,

Said Miss Lavender meditatively,

And since an old maid I had to be.

I was determined to be a very nice one.

People say I'm odd,

But it's just because I follow my own way of being,

An old maid and refuse to cote a traditional pattern.

Anne,

Did anyone ever tell you anything about Stephen Irving and me?

Yes,

Said Anne candidly.

I've heard that you and he were engaged once.

So we were,

Twenty-five years ago,

A lifetime ago,

And we were to have been married the next spring I had my wedding dress made,

Although nobody but mother and Stephen ever knew that.

We'd been engaged in a way almost all our lives,

You might say,

When Stephen was a little boy his mother would bring him here when she came to see my mother.

At the second time he ever came he was nine and I was six.

He told me out in the garden that he had pretty well made up his mind to marry me when I grew up.

I remembered that and I said,

Thank you,

And when he was gone I told my mother very gravely that there was a great weight off my mind because I wasn't frightened any more about having to be an old maid.

How poor mother laughed.

And what went wrong?

Asked Anne breathlessly.

We had just a stupid,

Silly,

Commonplace quarrel.

So commonplace that,

If you'll believe me,

I don't even remember just how it began.

I hardly know who was the more to blame for it.

Stephen did really begin it,

But I suppose I provoked him by some foolishness of mine.

He had a rival or two,

You see.

I was vain and I liked to tease him a little.

He was a very high-strung,

Sensitive fellow.

Well,

We parted in a temper on both sides,

But I thought it would all come right.

And it would have if Stephen hadn't come back too soon,

Anne.

Anne,

My dear,

I'm sorry to say.

Miss Lavender dropped her voice as if she were about to confess a predilection for murdering people.

That I am a dreadfully sulky person.

Oh,

You don't need to smile.

It is only too true.

I do sulk and Stephen came back before I had finished sulking.

I wouldn't listen to him and I wouldn't forgive him.

And so he went away for good.

He was too proud to come again and then I sulked because he didn't come.

I might have sent him for it,

Perhaps,

But I couldn't humble myself to do that.

I was just as proud as he was.

Pride and sulkiness made a very bad combination,

Anne,

But I could never care for anybody else.

And I didn't want to.

I knew I would rather be an old maid for a thousand years than marry anybody who wasn't Stephen Irving.

Well,

It all seems like a dream now,

Of course.

How sympathetic you look,

Anne.

As sympathetic as only seventeen can look.

Don't overdo it.

I'm really a very happy,

Contented little person.

In spite of my broken heart.

My heart did break,

If ever a heart did,

When I realized that Stephen Irving was not coming back.

Anne,

A broken heart in real life isn't half as dreadful as it is in books.

It is a good deal like bad food.

I thought you wouldn't think that,

A very romantic.

It takes spells of aching and gives you a sleepless night now and then.

But between times,

It lets you enjoy life and dreams and echoes.

And peanut candy as if there were nothing the matter with that,

And now you are looking disappointed.

You don't think I am half as interesting a person as you did five minutes ago,

When you believed I was always the prey of a tragic memory.

Bravely hidden beneath external smiles,

That is the worst or the best of real life,

Anne.

It won't let you be miserable.

It keeps you on trying to make you comfortable and succeeding,

Even when you are determined to be unhappy and romantic.

Isn't this candy scrumptious?

I've eaten far more than is good for me already,

But I am going to keep recklessly on.

After a little silence,

Miss Lavender said abruptly,

It gave me a shock to hear about Stephen's son that first day you were here,

Anne.

I've never been able to mention him to you since,

But I have wanted to know all about him.

What sort of boy is he?

He is the dearest,

Sweetest child I ever knew,

Miss Lavender,

And he pretends things too,

Just as you and I do.

I'd like to see him,

Said Miss Lavender softly,

As if talking to herself.

I wonder if he looks anything like the little dream boy who lives here with me.

My little dream boy.

If you would like to see Paul,

I'll bring him through with me sometime,

Said Anne.

I would like it,

But not too soon.

I want to get used to the thought there might be more pain than pleasure in it if he looked too much like Stephen,

Or if he didn't look enough like him.

In a month's time you may bring him.

Accordingly,

A month later Anne and Paul walked through the woods to the stone house and met Miss Lavender in the lane.

She had not been expecting them just then,

And she turned very pale.

So this is Stephen's boy,

She said in a low tone,

Taking Paul's hand and looking at him as he stood beautiful and boyish in his smart little fur coat and cap.

He is very like his father.

Everybody says I'm a chip off the old block,

Remarked Paul,

Quite at his ease.

Anne,

Who had been watching the little scene through a relieved breath,

She saw that Miss Lavender and Paul had taken to each other,

And that there would be no constraints or stiffness.

Miss Lavender was very sensible in spite of her dreams and romance,

And after that first little betrayal,

She tucked her feelings out of sight and entertained Paul as brightly and naturally as if he were anybody's son who had come to see her.

They all had a jolly afternoon together,

And such a feast of fat things by way of supper as would have made old Mrs.

Irving hold up her hands in horror,

Believing that Paul's digestion would be ruined forever.

Come again,

Laddie,

Said Miss Lavender,

Shaking her hands with him parting.

You may kiss me if you like,

Said Paul gravely.

Miss Lavender stooped and kissed him.

How did you know I wanted to?

She whispered.

Because you looked at me just as my little mother used to do when she wanted to kiss me.

As a rule I don't like to be kissed.

Boys don't,

You know,

Miss Lewis,

But I think I'd rather like to have you kiss me.

And of course I'll come to see you again.

I think I'd like to have you for a particular friend of mine if you don't object.

I don't think I shall object,

Said Miss Lavender.

She turned and went in very quickly,

But a moment later she was waving gay and smiling goodbye to them from the window.

I liked Miss Lavender,

Announced Paul,

As they walked through the beach woods.

I liked the way she looked at me,

And I liked her stone house,

And I liked Charlotte the Fort.

I wish Grandma Irving had a Charlotta Fort instead of Mary Jo.

I feel sure Charlotte the Fort wouldn't think I was wrong in my upper story when I told her what I think about things.

Wasn't that a splendid tea we had,

Teacher?

Grandma says a boy shouldn't be thinking about what he gets to eat,

But he can't help it sometimes when he is real hungry.

You know,

Teacher,

I don't think Miss Lavender would make a boy eat porridge for breakfast if he didn't like it.

She'd get things for him he did like,

But of course Paul was nothing if not fair-minded.

That might not be very good for him.

It is very nice for a change,

Though,

Teacher,

You know.