Having completed her task, the panting Julia faced her “darer,” Ruby, with a triumphant lift of her chin, then resumed her place in the circle amid a smattering of applause. Diana, Anne, and Jane squeezed into the circle, watching eagerly to see what feats would unfold next.
Carrie Sloane turned to Ruby with an impish twinkle in her eye. “Hopping isn’t so hard. I dare you to climb that tree.” She pointed to the gnarled old willow that grew near the front of the Barry house.
Ruby’s lip quivered. “But I can’t! I’m in my nicest dress. What if I tear it? My mother would skin me.”
“I dare you,” Carrie said levelly.
Ruby sniffled and eyed the willow with obvious misgiving. “There are caterpillars up there,” she implored.
Josie Pye had also been drawn to the circle, and now spoke up from her place opposite Diana. “Carrie dared you, Ruby. If you won’t do it, then you’re yellow.”
The girls all gasped as one. Ruby couldn’t allow such a thing to be said of her… no one could. So she gamely marched to the willow and, without further hesitation, began to climb. To everyone’s surprise, delicate Ruby, who was so prone to weeping and hysterics, proved herself quite nimble and strong. She raced up the willow as easily as a monkey would have done, and stuck her head out the top to wave at the girls below. It took her almost no time to descend, without any of the rips in her dress she had feared.
Diana’s party guests murmured in admiration as Ruby rejoined their ranks. “So there,” Ruby said to Carrie.
The spirit of daring had descended fully on Josie Pye. She narrowed her eyes at Jane. “I dare you to hop all the way around the garden patch on one foot, without stopping.”
The girls turned as one to consider the Barry garden patch. It was quite large and muddy in places, but a dare was a dare, and Jane knew the rules as well as anybody. She set off on her left foot, hopping with a steady, plodding rhythm that was characteristic of everything Jane did. She made it to one corner, and then the next, but by the time she was approaching the third she was winded and drooping. She stopped at the third corner and came wearily back to the circle.
“I couldn’t do it,” she said, downcast. “You win, Josie.”
Josie lifted her pointed nose in the air. “I’d think such a thing would be easy. Well, I won, fair and square, Jane Andrews. And don’t you forget it.”
“She’s only trying to punish Jane for being our friend,” Diana whispered to Anne. “You remember what Jane told us. Oh, she’s so rotten! I wish Mother hadn’t made me invite her to my party.”
Anne scrunched up her nose in the way that meant she was about to do something stubborn and possibly reckless. She stepped forward, into the middle of the circle. “If you think it’s so easy, then you won’t mind if I dare you to do something harder. Walk along the garden fence. Right along the top of it.”
The girls let out a collective, “Ooh!”
Josie eyed the garden fence for a moment, then turned back to Anne with a smile that was far better called a sneer.
“Go on,” Anne said. “I dare you.”
Josie didn’t bother with a saucy reply. She went right to the fence and upended a pail that was standing near it, then stepped from the pail up to the top of the board fence. It was narrow and somewhat wobbly in places, and the earth below was wet enough that it would stain Josie’s dress if she were to fall into it. The girls held their breath as Josie stuck out her arms to either side, and then, with all the confident grace of a queen in a regal procession, she went one foot in front of the other, straight down the line of the fence. She didn’t falter once. Of course, by the time she reached the end and hopped unharmed to the ground, her smug glee was unbearable to Diana.
“I really thought she couldn’t do it,” Anne muttered in defeat.
“Oh, she’ll be just awful now,” Diana replied. “She’ll never let you forget this, Anne!”
“Don’t worry,” Anne said. “I have a plan to get Josie for good.”
When the guests were finished congratulating Josie on her impressive feat, Anne tossed her braids and said loudly, “I don’t think it’s such a wonderful thing to walk a little, low board fence. I knew a girl in Marysville who could walk the ridgepole of a roof.”
Josie braced her fists on her hips and glared at Anne. “I don’t believe it. I don’t believe anybody could walk a ridgepole. You couldn’t, anyhow, Anne Shirley.”
Anne’s temper was roused—so much so that Diana perceived at once that Josie had turned the tables on Anne and gotten the better of her.
“Couldn’t I?” Anne cried indignantly.
Josie was quick with her response. “Then I dare you to do it.”
A deathly silence fell over the circle of girls. Anne paled; she saw now how Josie had deftly led her into the very trap Anne had intended to spring on her. But there was nothing for it now. The gauntlet had been thrown. Still Anne hesitated.
“I dare you to climb up there and walk the ridgepole of Mr. Barry’s kitchen roof,” Josie needled.
Anne turned toward the house as if she went into a den of hungry lions. Diana caught her by the hand. “Don’t you do it, Anne! You’ll fall off and be killed. Never mind Josie Pye. It isn’t fair to dare anybody to do something so dangerous.”
“I must do it,” Anne said rather faintly. “My honor is at stake. I shall walk that ridgepole, Diana, or perish in the attempt.” Anne turned to her with sudden intensity, fear and perhaps a little excitement shining from her gray eyes. “If I am killed, you are to have my pearl ring.”
With that, Anne disentangled herself from Diana’s desperate grip and made her way to an apple-picking ladder, which was resting up against the kitchen roof. Diana whimpered and clung to Jane’s arm as Anne climbed the ladder. She pulled herself up onto the roof and crept on hands and feet up its incline, until she was sitting on the ridgepole at its peak. Then she stood, her thin body wavering and tilting alarmingly from side to side as she struggled to find her balance.
Diana was quite breathless with terror. Even steady Jane was shivering as the girls all watched the spectacle on the roof-top.
Anne slowly extended her arms, just as Josie had done on the fence. It seemed to take an eternity for her to quell her precarious wobbling, but once she was more or less still, she slid one foot out along the peak of the roof, paused, and then slid the other. Step by agonizing step, Anne advanced. She seemed to gain more confidence as she went, so that Diana nearly convinced herself that Anne would make it after all. But before she reached the midpoint, disaster struck. Anne wobbled a bit too far; her arms pinwheeled too fast in her sudden panic. She could not right herself, and with a stagger and a lurch she thudded onto the roof, rolled ungracefully down its slope, and dropped with a crash into the Virginia creeper in the flower patch below.
The assembled girls screeched in panic and ran in a herd toward Anne. Diana fought her way through them, desperate to reach her friend’s side, fully convinced that Anne was already dead.
The pale form of Anne, sprawled among the tangle of Virginia creeper, did look rather corpse-like, so still and unstirring did she lay. With a wail of grief, Diana threw herself to her knees beside Anne and cradled the red head in her lap. “Anne, are you killed? Oh, Anne, dear Anne, speak just one word to me and tell me if you are killed.”
For a moment, Anne remained unresponsive, and Diana was certain her worst fear was true. “Why did I ever feel envy over you, Anne?” Diana wailed on the inside, even as shocked, silent tears spilled over her cheeks. “There’s no one I love more than you, no one in all the world. And now I realized it too late! Oh, if I could have you back safe and sound, I would never let envy stand between us again.”
But just as Diana was readying herself to throw back her head and shriek with the full force of her anguish, Anne gave a little gasp, a cough, and then carefully pushed herself up until she sat unsteadily among the ruined vines. “No, Diana, I am not killed,” Anne said weakly. “But I think I am rendered unconsc
ious.”
Carrie Sloane had never heard the word “unconscious” before, and assumed it was something quite fatal. “Where?” she sobbed as she and Ruby clung wailing to one another. “Oh, where, Anne?”
Anne never had the chance to respond. Mrs. Barry was there in a flash, making a way through the crowd of hysterical girls until she towered over Diana and Anne.
“This is the very end,” Diana thought, blushing with humiliation and misery as her mother loomed, frowning, overhead.
The event of the summer had turned out to be a disaster after all.
Diana On Her Own
Poor Anne broke her ankle in the fall from the kitchen roof. Diana was grief-stricken, feeling instinctively that it was her fault, for if she hadn’t given the party then the disaster of the dares never would have unfolded. Anne was to stay off her foot for seven weeks while it healed—a prospect she found impossible to comprehend, let alone to bear.
Diana made it her mission to visit Anne every day. There was little for Anne to do while lying in bed or propped up on the parlor sofa, except patchwork or embroidery, both of which she despised. Diana hoped her daily presence could at least take her friend’s mind off the tedium of needlework and bring a little cheer into her days.
August had already begun to dwindle by the time the Avonlea School board finally settled on a new teacher, a replacement for Mr. Phillips. It had been known for some time that the choice had come down to two lady applicants, but much discussion and debate were given over to making the final selection. There were many in Avonlea who felt that female teachers were no good—either too soft to maintain proper discipline, or not knowledgeable enough to impart anything more than plain common sense to their scholars, and perhaps they couldn’t even achieve as much as that. Others, fortunately, held women in higher regard, and their only difficulty was finding some way to eliminate one applicant or the other. Both prospective teachers were well qualified and equally matched.
In the end, though, they settled on Miss Stacy. And even though Diana knew nothing about Miss Stacy, news of the final decision excited her so much that she ran over to Green Gables a full hour before her usual visiting time to tell Anne all about it.
Anne was sitting sideways on the parlor sofa, propped with pillows behind, with her wrapped, splinted ankle stretched along the seat as if on piteous display for God and angels. She was picking disconsolately at a few crooked stitches in her patchwork, but she looked up eagerly when Diana entered.
“Oh, what is it, Diana? I can tell by how rosy your cheeks are that you have exciting news. Is it very thrilling? Please tell me right away, because I am so bored that I think I might actually cry.”
“I will tell you, if you’ll let me talk,” Diana said with a smile and a fond laugh. “What do you think, Anne? They’ve settled on our teacher for next year. Father just read the letter about it. Her name is Miss Stacy. Isn’t that a lovely name? I wonder what she’ll be like.”
“Now that is exciting news,” Anne said. But then her face fell. “Oh, Diana, I’ve only just realized. I won’t be back at school until three weeks into the term. Miss Stacy won’t even be new anymore by that time. Everybody will be used to her, and I’ll have missed all the excitement of meeting her while she’s still fashionable.”
“I’m sure she’ll be very nice,” Diana said. “Or I hope she will be, anyhow. Won’t it be dreadful if she turns out to be as stodgy and cross as Mr. Phillips? But I think she’ll be nice, and if she is, then she’ll feel just as exciting to you no matter when you meet her.” Diana pulled a book from her apron pocket and handed it to Anne. “Look here; I’ve brought you a new book to take your mind off your troubles.”
Anne’s face lit up when she read the silver-leaf words on the cover. “Charlotte Morgan’s newest! Diana, how did you get it?”
“You won’t believe it, Anne. My old aunt Josephine sent it to me! It’s a good job I went to the post office to get the mail that day, because if Mother had found it first she probably would have thrown it in the stove. But I kept it hidden and read it up in my room, and down by the brook when my chores were done and Mother couldn’t see me. It’s awfully good. I know you’ll like it real well.”
“The brook,” Anne said wistfully. “And the Dryad’s Bubble. Oh, I miss visiting our ‘old haunts,’ Diana. I can see some of them from my window, like the Haunted Wood and little bits of the Lake of Shining Waters, but it’s not the same as being there… walking among our dearest places, and hearing the leaves whisper together, and feeling the sun caress my cheek. This is the very most miserable summer I’ve ever had.”
“It isn’t all bad, is it?”
“Well… no. I have had plenty of visitors, and that has given me a nice feeling of being cared for. Even Josie came to see me, just this morning, with a big bouquet of flowers. I think she cut all the flowers from our own garden, because I recognized some of them, but ‘it’s the thought that counts,’ as Mrs. Lynde says. Josie was very apologetic and didn’t act smug or nasty once. I think she has come to feel quite badly about the dare, and is ridden with dark regrets. After all, what if I had been killed? I always thought it sounded romantic to be nearly killed, but now that I have lived through it, I can tell you it’s a thoroughly disagreeable experience, Diana. But I do think that if Josie dared me again, I might actually try to walk the ridgepole a second time.”
“Anne, you never would! I would hope you learned a lesson from that fall.” Diana sounded every bit as sensible as Jane Andrews just then, but she didn’t mind a bit.
“Oh, I suppose I wouldn’t really do it again,” Anne admitted. “But it was very courageous, wasn’t it?”
Diana had to concede that it was.
Anne was not the only girl in Avonlea who learned that summer just how many friends she had. Although Diana visited Green Gables loyally each and every day, she found herself with fare more free time than she’d had since Anne first arrived in Avonlea. For now that Anne couldn’t accompany her on their accustomed roamings and ramblings, Diana took to the company of other girls. Jane and Ruby were always game for walks among the wildflowers or shell-collecting expeditions on the red-sand beaches of the Gulf, whenever they could convince someone to drive them out for an afternoon of play. Julia Bell and Minnie Andrews sometimes joined them; once Minnie even invited Diana over to play croquet on the Newbridge Andrews’ big, flat lawn.
The girls were good company, but Diana enjoyed her solitary moments just as much, if not better. The fading summer still offered pockets of warmth, and the comforting lassitude one finds beneath murmuring trees or on the sunbaked stones beside gently moving water. There Diana would sprawl on her back, with the tall grasses and wildflowers for a screen, and read her stories until her heart was filled to overflowing.
Treasured, too, were the long walks she took alone. With only herself for company, she could dwell in the unexplored corners of her own mind. She was more thoughtful than she had ever been before, and moved more slowly through the world, noticing more of what she observed, forming her own opinions and ideals. By herself, amid the hum of evening crickets and the sway of ripening oat fields, Diana could be sure that the dreams she dreamed were truly her own, authentic to her own spirit.
The girls were not the only friends whose company Diana enjoyed that summer. One afternoon she followed the Newbridge road away from Orchard Slope, and presently found herself looking out over Barry’s Pond… the Lake of Shining Waters, as she couldn’t help but think of it now. The lake was very blue—the rich, deep sapphire hue of a perfectly reflected, cloudless August sky. It was a windless day, falling just short of being too warm for comfort, and the lake was undisturbed by the least wave or ripple—except for at its great log-and-stone bridge, where a lone figure leaned on the bridge’s railing, casting a baited hook down into the waters below. The splash of his fishing line stirred the water’s surface lazily.
Diana stood and looked at the fisherman for a moment, but couldn’t tell who it might be from so
great a distance. So, idle and curious, she walked on toward the bridge and then proceeded down it. By the time she realized it was Gilbert Blythe, he had taken note of her, and so she couldn’t scamper away again. There was nothing for it but to go up to him and say hello.
Gilbert drew in his line when Diana approached, then tipped his hat to her in the most charming way, with a crooked grin. “Good day to you, Miss Barry,” he said so loftily that Diana laughed.
“Is the fishing good today?”
“Not at all,” Gilbert said. “I haven’t had a bite. But that’s not the point. I only wanted to get out of the house for a while. The harvest is going to start soon, you see, and there won’t be much time for fishing after that. And after the harvest, it’s school again. So I must get it in while I still can, even if I don’t have anything to show for it.”
“I won’t take you away from your fun, then,” Diana said, and turned to head back toward home.
But Gilbert spoke quickly to stop her. “No; I don’t mind some company. Stay and talk a while. It’s such a nice day, and I’ll never complain about a pretty girl’s company.”
Diana blushed so hot she knew her face must be as red as an apple. Gilbert was a charmer; no doubt he said such things to all the schoolgirls, when he wasn’t dead set on teasing them until they were mindless with fury. Diana knew his compliment meant nothing, but she couldn’t help but enjoy it, all the same.
“Have you ever fished before?” Gilbert asked.
“Yes, I’ve done it a few times with my father.”
“Well, cast the line, then. Maybe you’ll bring some luck.”
“All right,” Diana said, “but you must bait the hook. I never could do it; the worms make me feel faint.”
Gilbert picked a fat, juicy worm from the can at his feet and threaded it onto the hook. Then he handed the pole to Diana. She flung the line well; worm and float landed with a tidy little splash and drifted on the big pond’s slight current.
Diana of Orchard Slope Page 20