Chapter Twenty-Five: An Avonlea Scandal
(Original thread here.) It is June now, about two weeks after the big storm. Anne is sad there are only two narcissus left, as she wanted to bring some to Matthew’s grave. *sniffles*
Marilla admits she misses them herself, but doesn’t want to be all “wah wah my flowers” when so many peoples’ crops and fruit trees were destroyed. Fair, tbh. Luckily, people have replanted and Mr Harrison told Anne if they have a good summer, things may be late, but they should still have a good harvest.
Suddenly a wagon comes up the lane and stops in front of Green Gables. A small woman around fifty and very well dressed woman jumps down. She asks Anne if this is where Mr Harrison lives and if it’s true he’s “going to be married to some woman living in this settlement”. Anne denies it guiltily and hastily explains the note in the paper was only a joke and Mr Harrison “has no intention of marrying ANYBODY”.
Great, the woman says, since she’s his wife!
YEAH!
Raise your hand if you saw THAT coming, because I sure didn’t! This is amazing, though. What a plot twist.
Anne tells this news to Marilla, who is as shocked as Anne (and me!). Mrs Rachel is less shocked, as she always expected SOMETHING to come up about him. Have I mentioned I love her??
Also, Anne and Marilla are too polite to go over and ask the Harrisons (LOL) wtf, but Mrs Rachel isn’t. She says she’ll basically just pretend she doesn’t know the wife exists. Mr Harrison has some medicine for Thomas he was bringing from Carmody, so that’s as good an excuse as any.
Marilla and Anne, I’ll note, don’t argue this at all. They’re basically weaponizing her to get gossip LOL
But she doesn’t come back!!
Davy, coming home at nine from the Boulter place, ran into her on the way, and explains to them Mrs Rachel said it was too late to call and sends her apologies. Also for once I’m on his side as he complains about being hungry. Apparently Mrs Boulter served tea at four and there weren’t “any preserves or cake… and even the bread was skurce”.
Anne tells him never to complain about what he’s given while visiting, so he happily agrees to only think it, which, honestly?? Fair.
Even Marilla agrees with him (out of earshot, of course) that Mrs Boulter isn’t exactly generous. Which, like, MAYBE they’re like super poor and barely scraping by or something but. The book makes it out that she’s just kind of stingy and not a very good host.
By Monday, though, Mr Harrison’s wife is the talk of Avonlea. Davy comes home from school with a good load of information from the other kids. Now, what’s actually true is anyone’s guess. He talked to four kids and got four different stories, LOL. So he decides to go over and “see what she’s like” for himself.
Marilla, again, does not protest this, which amuses me.
Sadly, his fate is one of disappointment, as Mrs Harrison wasn’t there. Apparently she’s “gone to Carmody with Mrs. Rachel Lynde to get new paper for the parlor” but Mr Harrison asked him to send Anne over to talk. When she get there the kitchen floor is scrubbed, as is all the furniture, and the stove polished, walls whitewashed, and windows sparkling
Even Mr Harrison himself is cleaner – clothes mended, hair trimmed and clean-shaven. He APPEARS not super happy about this. He speaks “in a tone but two degrees removed from that which Avonlea people used at funerals” as he describes how his “easy times” are over. “It’s neatness and tidiness for me for the rest of my natural life, I suppose.”
You poor baby. How hard it must be to have someone cook and clean for you and take care of you. How will you go on.
Anne doesn’t buy it, though, as “Mr. Harrison did his best to speak dolefully, but an irresponsible twinkle in his eye betrayed him.”
He admits he is glad, if only so peope stop gossiping that he’s courting everytime he wants to play checkers with someone.
Anne asks why he left his wife – Emily is her name, we find out – and he says she started it, which… did she? Did she really? *Thor gif* (Editing Laina: You know what gif I mean. I’m not getting sued by the Mouse over this.)
So, here’s the story.
Mr Harrison is from New Brunswick and his sister “kept house” for him until she died three years ago. Under her advice, he decided to get married. Emily had money of her own and he was surprised she agreed at all. After a two week honeymoon, they get home and she immediately starts cleaning at 10 at night
He claims the house wasn’t that bad and Emily was just like that, but this is the same dude who only washes dishes when it rains, so. I’m skeptical.
Apparently she wouldn’t leave him alone about things like taking his boots off in the house and only smoking outside. She was also a teacher before and poked him about his grammar and “eating with my knife” which I agree aren’t exactly big deals.
But he was annoyed about it all and was rude to her, leading them to fight more. Right up until he got the parrot when his brother died. Remember, the bird cursed up a storm constantly and Emily HATED it.
One day she had two ministers and their wives to tea, and Mr Harrison promised to put the bird away. But he “forgot” and just as they all sat down for tea, the bird starting cussing out a turkey in the yard. He sees the humour in it now, but it humiliated both of them at the time, especially Emily.
He had to do farm stuff and by the end of the day, basically decided to put the bird down, which I think is super excessive when you could just give it away. But when he gets home, Emily was gone. She had “gone back to her own house” and left a note saying basically he could have he or the bird, but not both.
God, this story would be an amazing @AITA_reddit post. Someone submit this and see what happens XD
He was like, “I pick the bird” because stubborn and sent all her stuff back to her, riling up the town they’re from into a bunch of gossip. People were on her side and it made him extra cranky. Which is saying a lot. He’d been to PEI as a kid “but Emily had always said she wouldn’t live in a place where folks were scared to walk out after dark for fear they’d fall off the edge”.
Which, tbh, is kind of a rude thing to say.
…but also an amazing insult that I love.
And he hadn’t heard anything from her until last Saturday when she just showed up in his house. That could absolutely be a horror movie, LOL
Anyways, she cleaned and cooked so he’s happy and the bird’s dead and PEI is bigger than she thought, so she’s happy. Apparently Emily has become fast friends with Mrs Rachel, too, which helps her. Mr Harrison says, “Emily had learned some lessons about getting along with a man”, which, EW. How about no?
Emily’s also pretty charmed by Anne, especially impressed that she’s been so nice to Mr Harrison, bringing him cakes and stuff. When she walks Anne home after tea, she says basically they were both to blame for the split. She especially regrets the grammar nitpicking, which I like.
She says, “It doesn’t matter if a man does use bad grammar so long as he is a good provider and doesn’t go poking round the pantry to see how much sugar you’ve used in a week.”
That’s really interesting to me. Like obviously it’s outdated, but I believe at this time married women basically didn’t work unless they were like really poor and like a housekeeper or something. So if you’re getting married, a stingy dude who doesn’t bring home the bacon, or keeps the bacon locked up, ain’t a great choice for a stable life.
It doesn’t seem like a love match on either Harrison’s side and I honestly think that’s cool to see. It’s not framed as a bad thing or weird at ALL. As an aro, I think it’s cool to see a non-romantic marriage presented as a thing two people can be very happy with. Their issue isn’t the lack of romantic feelings, it’s that they didn’t communicate well.
Mrs H is all “I wish I could thank this “Observer” person” who wrote the note and Anne carefully say nothing. Later, she’s “rather bewildered” by the fact that the silly notes “made the reputation of a prophet” and repaired a marriage.
Mrs Rachel is visiting Green Gables when Anne gets back. She’s on her way home, though, not wanting to leave Thomas alone too long. He’s having a good day, but there aren’t so many of those anymore. She also mentions Gilbert resigned from White Sands and that he’ll be going to college in the fall.
Then, “Mrs Rachel looked sharply at Anne” and I love that moment.
Chapter Twenty-Six: Around the Bend
(Original thread here.) Thomas Lynde passes away.
In the last chapter, Mrs Rachel had mentioned he’d been doing better the last few days, and that’s actually fairly common before someone dies, that they feel a lot better for a short period of time. It’s not clear, exactly, what Thomas dies from but I kinda get cancer vibes? Just from how slow it was and how nothing really helped.
It’s quite a lovely description of how Mrs Rachel “was a tender, patient, unwearied nurse” and how gentle and patient she is. The last thing he says, basically, is what a good wife, mother, and person she’s been. Then he quietly slips away in his sleep.
After his funeral, Marilla is acting funny. She goes to see Mrs Rachel, then comes up to talk to Anne. Out of character, she sits on Anne’s bed, even though “in Marilla’s code of household ethics to sit on a bed after it was made up was an unpardonable offense”.
She says Mrs Rachel is very lonely. Anne offers to go visit, but Marilla basically blurts that Gilbert’s going to college in the fall and would Anne like to go, too? This, obviously, shocks Anne, who says it isn’t possible, but Marilla says they can make it happen – and they should.
She says as much as Anne has been happy these last two years, she should go to college. She’s saved enough for a year at Redmond, and “the money the stock brought in will do for another year”. Plus there’s scholarships and things.
Anne still protests she can’t leave Marilla alone with the twins, but Marilla says that’s what she wanted to talk about.
She wants to invite Mrs Rachel to live at Green Gables.
Apparently the Lyndes “mortgaged the farm eight years ago to give the youngest boy a start when he went west; and they’ve never been able to pay much more than the interest since.” Even selling the farm won’t bring in much.
Remember, all of Mrs Rachel’s kids live out west except for her daughter Eliza, who is willing to take her in, but she doesn’t live in Avonlea, and Mrs Rachel is really not a fan of Eliza’s husband. Marilla and Mrs Rachel have been neighbours for *forty-five* years and Marilla says she’s miss Rachel dearly.
I mentioned in AoGG when Mrs Rachel made this exact offer to Marilla how amazing this offer really was to me. Honestly this isn’t that different from the Harrison marriage – two non-romantic people signing up to live their lives out together. And Mrs Rachel and Marilla will even be raising children together, as Marilla says “she’ll do for the twins what I can’t do”.
Marilla says, “It always seemed to me that the reason two women can’t get along in one house is that they try to share the same kitchen and get in each other’s way.” So she plans to turn the spare room into a kitchen for Rachel.
Which while obviously that’s very gendered/a little sexist, I think it’s more about them having a space of their own, and to feel control over their lives. Again, something women didn’t have a lot of then, really.
Obviously the gender roles are very strict in this time period, but I do think this book has something interesting to say about women. It’s interesting to compare all the women in this book who have very different lives. Compare just Anne and Diana – Anne is working and plans to go to college, while Diana is basically killing time til she gets married.
Marilla has never married and is perfectly content with her life. Miss Lavendar has never married either and is mostly happy. Miss Sarah Copp, the Andrwews sisters, there’s actually a lot of women who don’t marry and are happy.
But then you have Mrs Rachel enjoyed her full, rich life being married and having children. And then Emily Harrison has a marriage that isn’t really based on romantic love, but on a practical partnership, but she’s also perfectly happy with that! I just find that interesting.
Anyways Anne thinks it’s a very good idea, as she would also miss Mrs Rachel very much and Marilla says if she does move in, that means Anne can go to college. Mrs Rachel will be both company for Marilla and she can help take care of the twins. Honestly, I think Mrs Rachel will be good for Davy, personally.
That night, Anne is equally full of “joy and regret” as she’s really happy to go to college, but she’s going to deeply miss her school and friends and home. I adore this line. ““I’ve put out a lot of little roots these two years,” Anne told the moon, “and when I’m pulled up they’re going to hurt a great deal.”
That just… it’s so pretty and it speaks to me so much.
Avonlea gossip basically assumes Marilla and Mrs Rachel are going to kill each other, but they’re both just like, “You do you, I do me, we’ll be good.” Mrs Rachel says she’ll be glad to help with the twins as much as she can… except answering all of Davy’s questions.
This kid needs more to do, I swear. Teach him to knit or something.
“Gilbert Blythe was probably the only person to whom the news of Anne’s resignation brought unmixed pleasure.”
All her students are devastated, even Anthony Pye. Poor Jane is going to have a rough time taking over the Avonlea school. It’ll be nice, though, to have her home for Diana.
Speaking of Diana, she’s “very pessimistic” and obviously going to miss Anne dearly.
Even the Allans are leaving, moving to Charlottetown. Poor Mrs Allan is really conflicted about it.
(CW child death)
Along with how at home in Avonlea she feels, their baby who passed at only three months old is buried there. Anne promised to always put flowers on the baby’s grave and Diana quickly offers to take over for her, along with leaving them on Matthew and Hester Gray’s graves.
That really is such a lovely moment.
Also tbh the image of Mrs Allan singing a lullaby to her lost baby’s grave almost every night is so casually heartbreaking I can’t deal with it. Poor woman has had a hard two years. I’m glad their second little one is doing better.
Diana also worries the AVIS is done for, but Anne is optimistic. She thinks it’ll continue to do well as the “older people” are really into it now and she’ll still send suggestions and stuff.
Then she asks Diana to please stop being such a buzzkill LOL. Anne says she knows she’s going to be sad later, and she wants to enjoy being excited now.
Diana is worried Anne will make new friends and forget her, much like she was when Anne went to Queen’s. She also has some insecurities about being a “stupid little country girl”. The ableist language there isn’t great, obviously, but I do feel really bad for Diana. Her parents did her such a disservice.
She’s really insecure about her education. Remember how much young Diana loved to read and write? But her parents didn’t like that she read so much. Like obviously I don’t think college is for everyone, but Diana seemed to really want more from life.
She’s also so insecure about Anne’s friendship, which I find fascinating. I hate to say it, but that is something the 2016 movies got right, that Anne is not really a jealous person, but Diana does get jealous of Anne making other friends. Like I think Diana had other friends as a kid, if not super close ones, before Anne came along, but Anne had no other friends. And yet Diana is the one who is insecure about losing Anne’s friendship.
That’s really a subversion from what you’d expect.
This is an interesting part. Diana says, “Anne, I’m going to ask you a question… a serious question. Don’t be vexed and do answer seriously. Do you care anything for Gilbert?”
The response? ““Ever so much as a friend and not a bit in the way you mean,” said Anne calmly and decidedly; she also thought she was speaking sincerely.
Diana sighed. She wished, somehow, that Anne had answered differently.”
Diana is on that Sherbert ship 😛
This is an amusing part, too. Diana asks if Anne ever plans to marry, and Anne is like, “Maybe if I meet the PERFECT man, and my idea of the perfect man will always be the exact same as when I decided it at 15.” She is perfectly happy about the idea of dying “an old maid”, though.
Diana fusses about her weight, which ugh, but then mentions Nelson Atkins proposing to Ruby Gillis and we get some gossip. Ruby never intended to accept, but she was especially insulted to find his entire proposal, basically word for word, ripped off from an etiquette book.
She apparently has plenty of other suitors, something Diana can’t help being a little jealous of. Anne doesn’t have much patience for any of this, and both Anne and Diana say they don’t like Ruby much anymore.
Diana says, “It’s the Gillis coming out in her… she can’t help it. Mrs. Lynde says that if ever a Gillis girl thought about anything but the boys she never showed it in her walk and conversation” and “it’s what Ruby always wanted, I suppose.”
They both agree Jane is much more “sensible” and “lady-like”.
…2016 movie, I owe you another slight apology. You did have some basis for your Ruby bashing.
Not that it isn’t real shitty that they’re basically slut-shaming Ruby for liking boys/boys liking her.
Anne says she’ll never have a better friend than Diana, and how grateful she is to have had Diana in her life. Diana replies, “if I ever do marry and have a little girl of my own, I’m going to name her Anne” which is so sweet.
I really like this chapter. It’s a little sad, but it’s very sweet.
Chapter Twenty-Seven: An Afternoon at the Stone House
(Original thread here.) This is a chapter featuring a Davy moment where I actually find him kind of hilarious. That might actually be a miracle.
Anne comes “down to dinner in a new dress of pale green muslin” and it says this is “the first color she had worn since Matthew’s death”. The book had only previously mentioned that one “black lawn” dress and then white dresses. I probably should have, but I didn’t actually realize she was still only wearing black.
She also, apparently, looks VERY nice – it suits her hair and skin. Davy compliments her quite sweetly and asks where she’s going. She’s going to spend the afternoon at Echo Lodge and says it’s too far for him to walk and Paul is coming anyways.
Davy says he likes Paul a lot more now since he’s “got pretty good” himself. Plus Paul, bless his heart, is very kind to all the younger boys and teaches them new games and such.
Since Anne will be at Echo Lodge, Davy decides to go visit Mrs Harrison, of whom he has become a big fan. He likes that she always keeps cookies in the pantry and observes she’s made Mr Harrison twice as happy as he ever was. He says, “I guess getting married makes folks nicer. Why don’t YOU get married, Marilla? I want to know.”
And this next part is really funny to me.
“Marilla’s state of single blessedness had never been a sore point with her, so she answered amiably, with an exchange of significant looks with Anne, that she supposed it was because nobody would have her.”
Then Davy says, “But maybe you never asked anybody to have you” shocking Dora into saying men are supposed to “do the asking”.
Davy thinks this is deeply unfair and men shouldn’t have to everything. Surprise feminist Davy!
He asks for more pudding (using the British English definition) and Marilla says he’s had plenty but then gives him a second helping anyways.
She got so soft XD
He wonders if people could live on pudding alone, but say “it’s better to have pudding only on fish and company days than none at all” like, apparently, at Milty Boulter’s house. He says, “Milty says when company comes, his mother gives them cheese and cuts it herself” and only one small piece each.
Marilla says Milty shouldn’t talk about his mother like that, and even if he does, Davy shouldn’t repeat it.
Davy innocently says Milty said it as a compliment. “He’s awful proud of his mother, ’cause folks say she could scratch a living on a rock.”
Then: “”I… I suppose them pesky hens are in my pansy bed again,” said Marilla, rising and going out hurriedly.” They’re not – she sits on the cellar hatch and bursts out laughing “until she was ashamed of herself”.
Honesly that’s adorable! And short – that’s all the Davy in this chapter, and it was only a couple pages. Now that’s how to do it.
Miss Lavendar is very excited to see Anne and Paul. Paul is really hoping to hear the echoes today, as it was too windy on his first visit. I’m gonna skim a little here as the next bit is just them talking about food and Paul’s grandmother’s rules about snacking
And porridge. Again. They spend a lot of time talking about porridge.
There’s some interesting stuff comparing Anne’s view of religion verus Mrs Irving’s, though. Paul says, “Grandma says we should never think anything but religious thought on Sundays.”
Meanwhile Anne’s opinion is “every really beautiful thought” is religious. And I actually really respect that? Like I’m not religious, but Anne is, and I think it’s cool for her to talk about how she finds meaning in the beauty of the world and how she sees like, God’s work or whatever you want to call it, in everything. I think it’s cool to see Anne find meaning in religion, and what it means to her, and WHY she’s drawn towards it, versus just going along with it because it’s expected of her.
Paul agrees with Anne, but points out his grandma did raise his father, who turned out pretty good, while Anne has only helped with the twins, and they’re not grown yet, so they can’t tell how raising a kid her way will turn out. Anne is very diplomatic, saying she thinks at the base of things, she and Mrs Irving really mean “much the same thing” and just express it differently.
They have “lunch” which at this point I have no idea what meal that is. Anne has had dinner already and then they still have tea later. I guess lunch is like a between meals snack for them????
I don’t even know.
Poor Miss Lavendar tries to be happy for Anne, but she’s sad to hear of her leaving for college. More, even though Anne reassures her she’ll write and visit on vacations, Miss Lavendar says she’s “just tired of everything”.
She says, “Perhaps all I need is a course of blue pills.” I’ll tell you, googling “blue pills” is a risky game. But the general consensus after very careful searching seem to be a prepared mercury pill, also known as “blue mass”. Mercury was commonly prescribed for “melancholy”. That’s apparently the theorized cause of Lincoln’s anger issues.
So there’s that.
Charlotta the Fourth announces a nearby field is thick with early strawberries and asks if Anne would like to go with her to pick some, cheering Miss Lavendar up.
Mood, though. I love strawberries.
Charlotta the Fourth is awed by Anne and tries to adopt her way of talking and moving. There’s a line here about “the trick of that dainty uplift of the chin” that I love because in the 1985 mini-series Megan Follows does that CONSTANTLY.
Charlotta the Fourth thinks Diana is more traditionally pretty, but says, “I’d rather look like you than be pretty.” LOL what a compliment.
“Anne laughed, sipped the honey from the tribute, and cast away the sting. She was used to taking her compliments mixed.”
The book says, “Public opinion never agreed on Anne’s looks. People who had heard her called handsome met her and were disappointed. People who had heard her called plain saw her and wondered where other people’s eyes were.” It basically says if she wasn’t Anne, she wouldn’t be seen as so pretty – her personality and basically her “self” makes her pretty.
And that, really, is lovely.
Charlotta confesses she’s been quite worried about Miss Lavendar, that she thinks Miss Lavendar “isn’t well” and she’s been tired and lonely unless Anne is visiting. Anne declares as soon as school is over, she’ll come and stay a whole week, which delights Charlotta the Fourth.
When Miss Lavendar hears this, she says, “If you come for a week, I’ll keep you for two.”
Poor Miss Lavendar. I feel bad for her.
Laina Has Too Much Spare Time 