THE BEND IN THE ROAD
Marilla went to town the next day and returned in the evening. Anne had
gone over to Orchard Slope with Diana and came back to find Marilla in
the kitchen, sitting by the table with her head leaning on her hand.
Something in her dejected attitude struck a chill to Anne’s heart. She
had never seen Marilla sit limply inert like that.
“Are you very tired, Marilla?”
“Yes—no—I don’t know,” said Marilla wearily, looking up. “I suppose I
am tired but I haven’t thought about it. It’s not that.”
“Did you see the oculist? What did he say?” asked Anne anxiously.
“Yes, I saw him. He examined my eyes. He says that if I give up all
reading and sewing entirely and any kind of work that strains the eyes,
and if I’m careful not to cry, and if I wear the glasses he’s given me
he thinks my eyes may not get any worse and my headaches will be cured.
But if I don’t he says I’ll certainly be stone blind in six months.
Blind! Anne, just think of it!”
For a minute Anne, after her first quick exclamation of dismay, was
silent. It seemed to her that she could _not_ speak. Then she said
bravely, but with a catch in her voice:
“Marilla, _don’t_ think of it. You know he has given you hope. If you
are careful you won’t lose your sight altogether; and if his glasses
cure your headaches it will be a great thing.”
“I don’t call it much hope,” said Marilla bitterly. “What am I to live
for if I can’t read or sew or do anything like that? I might as well be
blind—or dead. And as for crying, I can’t help that when I get
lonesome. But there, it’s no good talking about it. If you’ll get me a
cup of tea I’ll be thankful. I’m about done out. Don’t say anything
about this to any one for a spell yet, anyway. I can’t bear that folks
should come here to question and sympathize and talk about it.”
When Marilla had eaten her lunch Anne persuaded her to go to bed. Then
Anne went herself to the east gable and sat down by her window in the
darkness alone with her tears and her heaviness of heart. How sadly
things had changed since she had sat there the night after coming home!
Then she had been full of hope and joy and the future had looked rosy
with promise. Anne felt as if she had lived years since then, but
before she went to bed there was a smile on her lips and peace in her
heart. She had looked her duty courageously in the face and found it a
friend—as duty ever is when we meet it frankly.
One afternoon a few days later Marilla came slowly in from the yard
where she had been talking to a caller—a man whom Anne knew by sight as
John Sadler from Carmody. Anne wondered what he could have been saying
to bring that look to Marilla’s face.
“What did Mr. Sadler want, Marilla?”
Marilla sat down by the window and looked at Anne. There were tears in
her eyes in defiance of the oculist’s prohibition and her voice broke
as she said:
“He heard that I was going to sell Green Gables and he wants to buy it.”
“Buy it! Buy Green Gables?” Anne wondered if she had heard aright. “Oh,
Marilla, you don’t mean to sell Green Gables!”
“Anne, I don’t know what else is to be done. I’ve thought it all over.
If my eyes were strong I could stay here and make out to look after
things and manage, with a good hired man. But as it is I can’t. I may
lose my sight altogether; and anyway I’ll not be fit to run things. Oh,
I never thought I’d live to see the day when I’d have to sell my home.
But things would only go behind worse and worse all the time, till
nobody would want to buy it. Every cent of our money went in that bank;
and there’s some notes Matthew gave last fall to pay. Mrs. Lynde
advises me to sell the farm and board somewhere—with her I suppose. It
won’t bring much—it’s small and the buildings are old. But it’ll be
enough for me to live on I reckon. I’m thankful you’re provided for
with that scholarship, Anne. I’m sorry you won’t have a home to come to
in your vacations, that’s all, but I suppose you’ll manage somehow.”
Marilla broke down and wept bitterly.
“You mustn’t sell Green Gables,” said Anne resolutely.
“Oh, Anne, I wish I didn’t have to. But you can see for yourself. I
can’t stay here alone. I’d go crazy with trouble and loneliness. And my
sight would go—I know it would.”
“You won’t have to stay here alone, Marilla. I’ll be with you. I’m not
going to Redmond.”
“Not going to Redmond!” Marilla lifted her worn face from her hands and
looked at Anne. “Why, what do you mean?”
“Just what I say. I’m not going to take the scholarship. I decided so
the night after you came home from town. You surely don’t think I could
leave you alone in your trouble, Marilla, after all you’ve done for me.
I’ve been thinking and planning. Let me tell you my plans. Mr. Barry
wants to rent the farm for next year. So you won’t have any bother over
that. And I’m going to teach. I’ve applied for the school here—but I
don’t expect to get it for I understand the trustees have promised it
to Gilbert Blythe. But I can have the Carmody school—Mr. Blair told me
so last night at the store. Of course that won’t be quite as nice or
convenient as if I had the Avonlea school. But I can board home and
drive myself over to Carmody and back, in the warm weather at least.
And even in winter I can come home Fridays. We’ll keep a horse for
that. Oh, I have it all planned out, Marilla. And I’ll read to you and
keep you cheered up. You sha’n’t be dull or lonesome. And we’ll be real
cosy and happy here together, you and I.”
Marilla had listened like a woman in a dream.
“Oh, Anne, I could get on real well if you were here, I know. But I
can’t let you sacrifice yourself so for me. It would be terrible.”
“Nonsense!” Anne laughed merrily. “There is no sacrifice. Nothing could
be worse than giving up Green Gables—nothing could hurt me more. We
must keep the dear old place. My mind is quite made up, Marilla. I’m
_not_ going to Redmond; and I _am_ going to stay here and teach. Don’t
you worry about me a bit.”
“But your ambitions—and—”
“I’m just as ambitious as ever. Only, I’ve changed the object of my
ambitions. I’m going to be a good teacher—and I’m going to save your
eyesight. Besides, I mean to study at home here and take a little
college course all by myself. Oh, I’ve dozens of plans, Marilla. I’ve
been thinking them out for a week. I shall give life here my best, and
I believe it will give its best to me in return. When I left Queen’s my
future seemed to stretch out before me like a straight road. I thought
I could see along it for many a milestone. Now there is a bend in it. I
don’t know what lies around the bend, but I’m going to believe that the
best does. It has a fascination of its own, that bend, Marilla. I
wonder how the road beyond it goes—what there is of green glory and
soft, checkered light and shadows—what new landscapes—what new
beauties—what curves and hills and valleys further on.”
“I don’t feel as if I ought to let you give it up,” said Marilla,
referring to the scholarship.
“But you can’t prevent me. I’m sixteen and a half, ‘obstinate as a
mule,’ as Mrs. Lynde once told me,” laughed Anne. “Oh, Marilla, don’t
you go pitying me. I don’t like to be pitied, and there is no need for
it. I’m heart glad over the very thought of staying at dear Green
Gables. Nobody could love it as you and I do—so we must keep it.”
“You blessed girl!” said Marilla, yielding. “I feel as if you’d given
me new life. I guess I ought to stick out and make you go to
college—but I know I can’t, so I ain’t going to try. I’ll make it up to
you though, Anne.”
When it became noised abroad in Avonlea that Anne Shirley had given up
the idea of going to college and intended to stay home and teach there
was a good deal of discussion over it. Most of the good folks, not
knowing about Marilla’s eyes, thought she was foolish. Mrs. Allan did
not. She told Anne so in approving words that brought tears of pleasure
to the girl’s eyes. Neither did good Mrs. Lynde. She came up one
evening and found Anne and Marilla sitting at the front door in the
warm, scented summer dusk. They liked to sit there when the twilight
came down and the white moths flew about in the garden and the odour of
mint filled the dewy air.
Mrs. Rachel deposited her substantial person upon the stone bench by
the door, behind which grew a row of tall pink and yellow hollyhocks,
with a long breath of mingled weariness and relief.
“I declare I’m glad to sit down. I’ve been on my feet all day, and two
hundred pounds is a good bit for two feet to carry round. It’s a great
blessing not to be fat, Marilla. I hope you appreciate it. Well, Anne,
I hear you’ve given up your notion of going to college. I was real glad
to hear it. You’ve got as much education now as a woman can be
comfortable with. I don’t believe in girls going to college with the
men and cramming their heads full of Latin and Greek and all that
nonsense.”
“But I’m going to study Latin and Greek just the same, Mrs. Lynde,”
said Anne laughing. “I’m going to take my Arts course right here at
Green Gables, and study everything that I would at college.”
Mrs. Lynde lifted her hands in holy horror.
“Anne Shirley, you’ll kill yourself.”
“Not a bit of it. I shall thrive on it. Oh, I’m not going to overdo
things. As ‘Josiah Allen’s wife’ says, I shall be ‘mejum.’ But I’ll
have lots of spare time in the long winter evenings, and I’ve no
vocation for fancy work. I’m going to teach over at Carmody, you know.”
“I don’t know it. I guess you’re going to teach right here in Avonlea.
The trustees have decided to give you the school.”
“Mrs. Lynde!” cried Anne, springing to her feet in her surprise. “Why,
I thought they had promised it to Gilbert Blythe!”
“So they did. But as soon as Gilbert heard that you had applied for it
he went to them—they had a business meeting at the school last night,
you know—and told them that he withdrew his application, and suggested
that they accept yours. He said he was going to teach at White Sands.
Of course he gave up the school just to oblige you, because he knew how
much you wanted to stay with Marilla, and I must say I think it was
real kind and thoughtful in him, that’s what. Real self-sacrificing,
too, for he’ll have his board to pay at White Sands, and everybody
knows he’s got to earn his own way through college. So the trustees
decided to take you. I was tickled to death when Thomas came home and
told me.”
“I don’t feel that I ought to take it,” murmured Anne. “I mean—I don’t
think I ought to let Gilbert make such a sacrifice for—for me.”
“I guess you can’t prevent him now. He’s signed papers with the White
Sands trustees. So it wouldn’t do him any good now if you were to
refuse. Of course you’ll take the school. You’ll get along all right,
now that there are no Pyes going. Josie was the last of them, and a
good thing she was, that’s what. There’s been some Pye or other going
to Avonlea school for the last twenty years, and I guess their mission
in life was to keep school-teachers reminded that earth isn’t their
home. Bless my heart! What does all that winking and blinking at the
Barry gable mean?”
“Diana is signalling for me to go over,” laughed Anne. “You know we
keep up the old custom. Excuse me while I run over and see what she
wants.”
Anne ran down the clover slope like a deer, and disappeared in the
firry shadows of the Haunted Wood. Mrs. Lynde looked after her
indulgently.
“There’s a good deal of the child about her yet in some ways.”
“There’s a good deal more of the woman about her in others,” retorted
Marilla, with a momentary return of her old crispness.
But crispness was no longer Marilla’s distinguishing characteristic. As
Mrs. Lynde told her Thomas that night,
“Marilla Cuthbert has got _mellow_. That’s what.”
Anne went to the little Avonlea graveyard the next evening to put fresh
flowers on Matthew’s grave and water the Scotch rose-bush. She lingered
there until dusk, liking the peace and calm of the little place, with
its poplars whose rustle was like low, friendly speech, and its
whispering grasses growing at will among the graves. When she finally
left it and walked down the long hill that sloped to the Lake of
Shining Waters it was past sunset and all Avonlea lay before her in a
dreamlike afterlight—“a haunt of ancient peace.” There was a freshness
in the air as of a wind that had blown over honey-sweet fields of
clover. Home lights twinkled out here and there among the homestead
trees. Beyond lay the sea, misty and purple, with its haunting,
unceasing murmur. The west was a glory of soft mingled hues, and the
pond reflected them all in still softer shadings. The beauty of it all
thrilled Anne’s heart, and she gratefully opened the gates of her soul
to it.
“Dear old world,” she murmured, “you are very lovely, and I am glad to
be alive in you.”
Half-way down the hill a tall lad came whistling out of a gate before
the Blythe homestead. It was Gilbert, and the whistle died on his lips
as he recognized Anne. He lifted his cap courteously, but he would have
passed on in silence, if Anne had not stopped and held out her hand.
“Gilbert,” she said, with scarlet cheeks, “I want to thank you for
giving up the school for me. It was very good of you—and I want you to
know that I appreciate it.”
Gilbert took the offered hand eagerly.
“It wasn’t particularly good of me at all, Anne. I was pleased to be
able to do you some small service. Are we going to be friends after
this? Have you really forgiven me my old fault?”
Anne laughed and tried unsuccessfully to withdraw her hand.
“I forgave you that day by the pond landing, although I didn’t know it.
What a stubborn little goose I was. I’ve been—I may as well make a
complete confession—I’ve been sorry ever since.”
“We are going to be the best of friends,” said Gilbert, jubilantly. “We
were born to be good friends, Anne. You’ve thwarted destiny long
enough. I know we can help each other in many ways. You are going to
keep up your studies, aren’t you? So am I. Come, I’m going to walk home
with you.”
[Illustration: “‘Come, I’m going to walk home with you.’”]
Marilla looked curiously at Anne when the latter entered the kitchen.
“Who was that came up the lane with you, Anne?”
“Gilbert Blythe,” answered Anne, vexed to find herself blushing. “I met
him on Barry’s hill.”
“I didn’t think you and Gilbert Blythe were such good friends that
you’d stand for half an hour at the gate talking to him,” said Marilla,
with a dry smile.
“We haven’t been—we’ve been good enemies. But we have decided that it
will be much more sensible to be good friends in future. Were we really
there half an hour? It seemed just a few minutes. But, you see, we have
five years’ lost conversations to catch up with, Marilla.”
Anne sat long at her window that night companioned by a glad content.
The wind purred softly in the cherry boughs, and the mint breaths came
up to her. The stars twinkled over the pointed firs in the hollow and
Diana’s light gleamed through the old gap.
Anne’s horizons had closed in since the night she had sat there after
coming home from Queen’s; but if the path set before her feet was to be
narrow she knew that flowers of quiet happiness would bloom along it.
The joys of sincere work and worthy aspiration and congenial friendship
were to be hers; nothing could rob her of her birthright of fancy or
her ideal world of dreams. And there was always the bend in the road!
“‘God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world,’” whispered Anne
softly.
THE END.
Transcriber’s Note:
The spelling and hyphenation of the original text
have been retained. In some cases, the spelling
and hyphenation of the original text are inconsistent.
In Chapter 17, there is a letter with three
intentional misspellings, which are retained:
- comune (instead of commune)
- busum (instead of bosom)
- improoving (instead of improving)
Corrections have been applied to the following
errors in the text:
- Table of Contents, Ch. 1 and Ch. 9
text: Rachael
changed to: Rachel
- Chapter 1.
text: “Rachel Lynde’s husband—
changed to: “Rachel Lynde’s husband”—
- Chapter 8.
text: echo lived there
changed to: echo lived there.
- Chapter 16.
text: to forget, said Anne.
changed to: to forget,” said Anne.
- Chapter 20.
text: did she resent the license
changed to: did she repent the license
- Chapter 32.
text: Spurgeon stayed resolutely away
changed to: Spurgeon stayed resolutely away.
- Chapter 38.
text: told her Thomas that night.
changed to: told her Thomas that night,